Protection markets are mostly deterrence, not cleanup after disputes

Evidence

Most accounts of mafia protection are biased by the way they become known to us, for we usually hear only about those occasions when something goes wrong and blood is spilled. When things go well, there is either nothing to reveal or no reason to reveal it. The picture we get of protection, then, reflects only interventions after the event, after a dispute has arisen or a crime has occurred. But protection is not simply a repressive measure. On the contrary, as we know, its predominant role is one of deterrence. — Diego Gambetta, The Sicilian Mafia The Business of…, 411

Categorization

Category: Causal Relationships

• XREF: Connects to the reader’s Gambetta model: deterrence is the core private-protection product, with dispute settlement only the visible residual — mirrors Schelling’s point that observable conflict is the failed-deterrence tail.
• QUESTION: If deterrence dominates, how does one measure the size of a protection market, since the successful cases never surface in records?

Related

• Protection’s primary function is deterrence, not post-crime response (similarity 0.90)
• Mafia protection is a demanded commodity substituting for trust (similarity 0.84)
• Mafia protection treats crime as disputes, not offenses (similarity 0.83)
• The mafia persists only where the state fails to supply genuine protection. (similarity 0.82)
• Protection supply can create its own demand rather than merely meet it. (similarity 0.81)
• Mafia protection is often genuinely sought after by customers, not merely imposed (similarity 0.81)
• The mafia can be understood as an industry selling private protection (similarity 0.81)
• Protection demand, not commodity prosperity, predicts mafia entry into a market. (similarity 0.81)
• Victimhood in disputes shifts with the failure of one’s own protection (similarity 0.80)
• Violence gets overproduced by competition even after it is no longer required (similarity 0.80)
• A free market in quality can dissolve the demand for mafia protection (similarity 0.80)
• Protection suppliers can create demand that did not previously exist. (similarity 0.80)
• Mafia protection customers range from spot buyers to kin (similarity 0.80)
• Mafia protection requires maintaining relations with the underworld it polices (similarity 0.79)
• Mafia protection only emerges where territory can be cheaply monitored (similarity 0.79)