The public's association of the word with the criminal secret society was perhaps inspired by the 1863 play "I mafiusi di la Vicaria" (it) ("The Mafiosi of the Vicaria") by Giuseppe Rizzotto and Gaspare Mosca.[11] The words mafia and mafiusi are never mentioned in the play. The play is about a Palermo prison gang with traits similar to the Mafia: a boss, an initiation ritual, and talk of umirtà (omertà or code of silence) and "pizzu" (a codeword for extortion money).[12] The play had great success throughout Italy. Soon after, the use of the term "mafia" began appearing in the Italian state's early reports on the group. The word was first documented in 1865 in a report by the prefect of Palermo Filippo Antonio Gualterio (it).[13]
The term mafia has become a generic term for any organized criminal network with similar structure, methods, and interests. But Giovanni Falcone, the anti-Mafia judge who was murdered by the Mafia in 1992, had objected to the conflation of the term "Mafia" with organized crime in general: Girls Gangster
1930s-1990s
