The Mafia is a form of organized crime, operating both in Italy and abroad, which uses
intimidation and violence for financial gain and control of the territory. The Mafia
appropriate functions that are peculiar to the constitutional State, to the point of
constituting itself a counter-state.
In Italy specifically, many mafia associations meet this definition, including Cosa
Nostra and Stidda in Sicily, the 'Ndrangheta in Calabria, the Sacra Corona Unita in
Apulia, and the Camorra in Campania.
It is difficult to act in such a climate of subjugation and silence because it builds on
violence and fear. The Righteous are those who have dared to "hold their heads high
and their backs straight" in the face of evil, denouncing the mafia groups,
breaking the wall of silence and telling about intimidations and mafia crimes,
asking for legality and justice, and who too often paid for these gestures with their
own lives.