ABSTRACT
This chapter examines the origins of Italian organized crime, the evolution of its most influential organized groups, and their 21st century manifestations. The term mafia has been used to describe a number of different forms of international organized crime, such as in the case of the so-called Russian, Sicilian, Asian, and Albanian mafias. In most cases, there has been a tendency to view these groups as the products of undeveloped and disordered social systems. Omerta, the code of silence, evolved naturally as a firm social contract between Sicilian citizens and criminals, born in no small part from their fear of the power of the Mafiosi, only heightened by their distrust of the belligerent absentee landowners. This subculture was governed by a conventional system of norms: the private use of violence, respect, refusal to cooperate with the state in any way, the rule of silence.
