Mafiosi themselves define their trade as dispute settlement.

Evidence

The essence of these various protection services seems to be dispute settlement. The mafiosi themselves view their trade in this way. In the conversation with his Sicilian friends secretly recorded by Canadian police in Montreal, Paul Violi remarked: “Our life consists always of encouraging reason, of fixing things for someone or other… When a person comes into conflict with other people and does not know where to turn, he knows that you are there and comes to you… because he knows that if he comes to you, you can… [sort out] the situation somehow” (OSPA Stajano: 59-60). — Diego Gambetta, The Sicilian Mafia The Business of…, 430

Categorization

• XREF: A primary-source confirmation that the mafia functions as a private arbitration service — direct evidence for the reader’s Gambetta-as-private-judge mapping.
• SEED: Angle for an essay: the self-description of illicit power brokers as ‘peacemakers’ — parallels with loan sharks, warlord justice, and medieval merchants’ own accounts of fairs as peaceful marketplaces.