Mafia protection of thieves both encourages crime and drives victims to seek protection
Evidence
By making protection available to thieves and robbers, the mafia encourages crime; in addition, while it takes a portion of the profits from perpetrators, it gives added incentive to victims to enlist its protection. — Diego Gambetta, The Sicilian Mafia The Business of…, 498
Categorization
Category: Causal Relationships
Related
- Thieves need protection as badly as their victims do (similarity 0.93)
- Mafia protection treats crime as disputes, not offenses (similarity 0.89)
- Mafia protection requires maintaining relations with the underworld it polices (similarity 0.87)
- Protection availability lowers criminal career entry costs (similarity 0.86)
- Mafia protection is a demanded commodity substituting for trust (similarity 0.85)
- Mafia protection signals that distrusting others is rational (similarity 0.84)
- Demand for protection does not guarantee supply of a mafia (similarity 0.84)
- The mafia can be understood as an industry selling private protection (similarity 0.84)
- Mafia protection customers range from spot buyers to kin (similarity 0.84)
- Protection demand, not commodity prosperity, predicts mafia entry into a market. (similarity 0.83)
- Sicily’s robbery share vastly exceeded its population share in 1990 (similarity 0.83)
- Mafia violence exceeds what rational enforcement economics would require (similarity 0.83)
- The extortion-only view of mafia protection stems from an informational bias (similarity 0.82)
- Mafia protection suppresses the emergence of honest-dealing business norms. (similarity 0.82)
- The mafioso profits directly from maintained distrust in the market. (similarity 0.82)