A protector cannot seek police help without destroying his protective reputation

Evidence

Relationships and contacts with law-enforcement agents are prohibited not so much in the interests of security as to protect reputation: “It is a fundamental rule for every man of honor never to report a theft or crime to the police” (TC: 121). How, indeed, would it be possible to make a living protecting others from crime if one were known to have fallen victim to it oneself? On this point all informants agree (VM: 10; TB: III, 137): the thing to do is to catch the thief oneself and punish him accordingly. — Diego Gambetta, The Sicilian Mafia The Business of…, 310

Categorization

• XREF: Directly evidences the reader’s Gambetta frame: reputation is the core capital of the private protection firm, so any state dependency signals unreliability. Ties to the Milgrom private-judge material and to the opening Bonasera scene.
• BMF: The mafioso’s wife preferring to absorb a stolen-clothes loss rather than report it mirrors the honor-driven refusals in Achebe’s Things Fall Apart where acknowledged victimhood or dependence corrodes masculine/authority standing.