Joseph Fiero as a mafia man in a short film. (also known as Cosa Nostra) is an Italian criminal secret more...society which first developed in the mid-19th century in Sicily. An offshoot emerged on the East Coast of the United States and in Australia[1] during the late 19th century following waves of Sicilian and Southern Italian emigration (see also Italian diaspora). In North America, the Mafia often refers to Italian organized crime in general, rather than just traditional Sicilian organized crime. According to historian Paolo Pezzino: "The Mafia is a kind of organized crime being active not only in several illegal fields, but also tending to exercise sovereignty functions – normally belonging to public authorities – over a specific territory..."[2]
Some observers have seen "mafia" as a set of attributes deeply rooted in popular culture, as a "way of being", as illustrated in the definition by the Sicilian ethnographer, Giuseppe Pitrè, at the end of the 19th century: "Mafia is the cons less
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