Mafia, name given, probably in the 1800s, to organized, independent groups of brigands in Sicily. Following a Feudal tradition the Mafia disdained legal authorities, sought justice through direct action and held a rigid code of secrecy, practices that enabled Mafiosi to rise in organized crime, after migrating from Italy to the United States in the late nineteenth and early twentieth century. The Mafia survived Mussolini's attempt to stamp it out in Italy before World War II, and it and other Italian organizations remained influential in Sicily and in Italy. They often assassinated justice officials who prosecuted them in the 1980s and 1990s. During this period in the United States, the Mafia was active in both illegal and legal operations. They curtailed extortion and racketeered, and expanded white-collar crimes involving areas such as the stock market.
The increase of felonies was due to contributing fact of organized crime especially in larger cities. Because of liquor not being available due to Prohibition the public turned to those gangsters, these Mafiosi who readily took on the bootlegging industry and supplied them with liquor. Bootlegging, which was the illegal production or distribution of proscribed or highly taxed goods, which is historically applied to the dealing of liquor, was dominated by gangsters such as Al Capone. On account of the industry being so profitable, more gangsters, like Capone became more involved in the money-making business. Crime became so well organized, criminal groups organized steady sources of income. As a result of the money involved in the bootlegging industry, there grew much rivalry among different gangs. The profit motive caused over four hundred gang related murders just in one year in Chicago alone.
Large cities were the main location for organized gangs to flourish. Although there were over a half a dozen powerful gangs in New York, Chicago was the capital of racketeers, including Johnny Torrio, "Bugs Moran", O"Banions, and the Gennas (Behr,192).