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Organized crime is distinguished from other forms of crime by its internal hierarchical structure, use of violence for enforcement, and financial success. Organized crime is a market-based activity in three major areas: provision of illegal services, infiltration of legitimate business, and racketeering. Organized crime syndicates have managed to continue activities with little interference from legal agents.

The enormous wealth and power of organized crime affects us every day of our lives. This legacy of power, however, had small beginnings. Mafia, the name given to a loose association of criminal groups, sometimes bound by a blood oath and sworn to secrecy, first developed in Sicily in feudal times to protect the estates of absentee landlords. By the 19th century the Mafia had become a network of criminal bands that dominated the Sicilian countryside. The members were bound by Omerta, a rigid code of conduct that included avoiding all contact and cooperation with the authorities. The Mafia had neither a centralized organization nor a hierarchy; it consisted of many small groups, each autonomous within its own district. By employing terroristic methods against the peasant electorate, the Mafia attained political office in several communities, thus acquiring influence with the police and obtaining legal access to weapons.

Benito Mussolini's Fascist government succeeded for a time in suppressing the Mafia, but the organization emerged again after World War II ended in 1945. Over the next thirty years the Mafia became a power not only in Sicily but all over Italy as well. The Italian government began an anti-Mafia campaign in the early 1980s, leading not only to a number of arrests and sensational trials, but also to the assassination of several key law-enforcement officials in retaliation. Public outrage was tempered by the arrest in 1993 of the reputed Mafia leader, Salvatore Riina.

Beginning in the late 19th century, some members of the Mafia immigrated to the United States. They soon became entrenched in American organized crime, especially in the 1920s during Prohibition. After the repeal of Prohibition in 1933 ended most bootlegging, the Mafia moved into other areas, such as gambling, labor racketeering, prostitution, and, in recent years, narcotics. Links with the Italian Mafia were also maintained. As in Italy, prosecution of reputed Mafia leaders in the United States increased in the 1980s and 1990s.

Responsible groups of Americans have, at times, waged campaigns in the media to obliterate any assumption that crime in the United States is dominated by people of Italian descent, claiming that the existence of an American Mafia had not been fully established. Along that vein is the insurgence of international organized crime syndicates not associated with the Italian Mafia, or its American counterpart. In Asia, for example, organized crime groups that originated in Pakistan, Thailand, China, and Japan operate vast international organizations that traffic drugs and engage in a wide variety of criminal activities. Many times, these activities are done with the complicity of local government and military officials. Similarly, in the former Soviet Union and in the struggling countries of Eastern Europe, criminal organizations, previously held in check by communism, are developing international links to improve their own organization abilities and marketing contacts. Of even more concern, these same groups are penetrating struggling local governments through bribery and violence to win protection for their expanding operations.