MAFIA

Mafia

Mafia and Roles Played by Women

Introduction

The Mafia is an organized crime formation with Sicilian roots; branches in France, Tunisia, and the Americas; and a recent presence in Russia and Eastern Europe. Its historical successes vis-à-vis other criminal groups, particularly in the United States, have made the word mafia (whose origin has never been convincingly traced) a brand name for organized crime. Recently repressed on both sides of the Atlantic, the Mafia, as such, may be on the wane, although reduced vigilance could allow resurgence. Women have an important role within Mafias. They work at least as a mother, daughter, wife which is the axis of "family" mafia. Women are growing equal to the leadership positions. This is both since women are changing the mafia, and the mafia is changing. This paper discusses mafia and roles played by women in mafias.

Discussion

Antecedents of the Mafia date to the late 1800s in Sicily, when a newly unified Italian state sought to transform feudal and ecclesiastical holdings into private property, impose taxes, and draft soldiers, but without building institutions that could govern the resulting banditry and chaos. Self-anointed “mafias” filled the breach, claiming to restore order while earning revenue from manipulating disorder. Enterprises of many kinds were extorted for a pizzo (a “beak full”) as the price for protection, and pressed to distribute employment opportunities in ways that leveraged the racketeers' local influence. Using their electoral clout, mafiosi also insinuated themselves with local, regional, and national governments, receiving licenses to carry weapons and “fix” inconvenient trials. Older, established capi (bosses) rarely went to jail, whereas younger picciotti (henchmen and enforcers) experienced incarceration as no more than a perfunctory interruption of their affairs. When criminal convictions occurred, the cosca functioned as a mutual-aid society, taking care of imprisoned members' families. Prisons, in turn, were nerve centers of inter-cosca communication. (In contemporary accounts, generalized “mafiism,” earlier defined as the integument of the Mafia, is downplayed as part of a racialized “myth of Sicily” and an obstacle to serious inquiry). (Reuter, 2003)

The opportunities for women in illegitimate markets may expand over time as well. As an example, in 1993, Italian police captured a key figure of one of the major branches of organized crime, Rosetta Cutolo. Although her prominent place in the organization was initiated by her brother, the founder of the gang, she was allegedly responsible for arranging the murder of a prison warden and the car bombing of a rival. The newspaper pointed out that seven of thirty-two leaders arrested from this organized crime gang have been women, and that the Camorra gang has “offered more equal opportunities for women than the Cosa Nostra, its Sicilian cousin” (Montalbano, 1993). Likewise, Anderson (2005) argues that women perform a number of functions central to the drug economy. The arrest of a female drug lord in Mexico received considerable attention as tales of her rise to power with seduction and deception generated folk legends, a YouTube video, and a massive federal ...