The Effects of Organized Crime The Mafia is a secret criminal organization that wields great economic and political control over large segments of Sicilian society and operates both criminal and legitimate enterprises in the United States. It is believed to have originated during Sicily's late Middle Ages, beginning as separate bands of strong-arm enforcers hired by locallandowners. It eventually evolved into a network of autonomous groups governing in rural areas, ruling a peasantry that received little effective government from a succession of distant, often foreign, royal rulers. In its present form, the Mafia is a loose alliance of many small lo