'Cosa Nostra' (Italian for 'This thing of ours') also known as the Mafia. It is a secret society formed in the middle of the 19th Century in Sicily. It stands for family values, and protecting the weak against the powerful. An American arm was formed in the USA at the end of the 1800s. The word 'mafia' itself is derived from the Arabic mahjas, meaning 'aggressive boasting, bragging'. The orientation ritual in most families happens when a man becomes an associate, and then, a soldier. It is designed to protect the weak against the powerful. The Mafia has gained its criminal image in a literary way, being mentioned in plays during the period. The Mafia served as protection for the large orange and lemon estates surrounding the city of Palermo. By the mid-20th Century the Mafia in New York had infiltrated many of the internal crime organisations and groups. The Mafia began a steep decline in the late-1970s and early 1980s due in part to laws such as the RICO Act, which made it a crime to belong to an organization that performed illegal acts, and to programs such as the witness protection program.
