The mafia banned kidnapping because it endangered paying clients.

Evidence

It is a fact that in the 1970s in Sicily there were very few kidnapings by comparison with the rest of Italy for the same period. Kidnaping was forbidden mainly because its impact on regular customers was so drastic. — Diego Gambetta, The Sicilian Mafia The Business of…, 456

Categorization

Category: Causal Relationships

• XREF: Directly evidences Gambetta’s protection-market model: the mafia forbids crimes that alienate or endanger its client base, consistent with Milgrom/North/Weingast’s private-judge framework where enforcement protects the transaction stream.

Related

• The Mafia forbade kidnaping to protect its paying customers. (similarity 0.93)
• The mafia banned kidnapping on utilitarian not moral grounds. (similarity 0.88)
• The kidnap ban was pushed to shield protectors’ vulnerable clients. (similarity 0.83)
• The mafia killed anyone who planned unlicensed kidnappings. (similarity 0.81)
• Mafia protection customers range from spot buyers to kin (similarity 0.80)
• The mafia enforces moral codes as a form of territorial public safety (similarity 0.80)
• Mafia protection is a demanded commodity substituting for trust (similarity 0.79)
• Mafia killings often result from client misunderstandings about the current validity of their protection. (similarity 0.79)
• Mafia protection treats crime as disputes, not offenses (similarity 0.78)
• The mafia can be understood as an industry selling private protection (similarity 0.78)
• The kidnap prohibition may have emerged from an internal factional exploit. (similarity 0.78)

Broader Connections

• The mafia banned kidnapping on utilitarian not moral grounds. #expands (0.95) — Diego Gambetta, The Sicilian Mafia The Business of…, 453
• The kidnap ban was pushed to shield protectors’ vulnerable clients. #corroborates (0.90) — Diego Gambetta, The Sicilian Mafia The Business of…, 454