Thieves need protection as badly as their victims do
Evidence
Ordinary citizens dislike being cheated or robbed. But something we tend to forget is that so do thieves: there is nothing like a dishonest fence to spoil their sleep. They cannot resort to the law, and, being criminals, they have an excellent reason not to trust one another. Thus, thieves need protection badly and, as a result, become particularly eager customers. Correspondingly, if protection is readily available, the temptation to embark on a criminal career increases, since it becomes easier to dispose of stolen goods or to avoid retaliation. — Diego Gambetta, The Sicilian Mafia The Business of…, 84
Categorization
Category: Causal Relationships
- XREF: Explains the paradox the reader wants resolved: mafia presence encourages crime because it protects the criminals’ side of the market.
Related
- Mafia protection of thieves both encourages crime and drives victims to seek protection (similarity 0.93)
- Protection availability lowers criminal career entry costs (similarity 0.88)
- Mafia protection treats crime as disputes, not offenses (similarity 0.87)
- Mafia protection requires maintaining relations with the underworld it polices (similarity 0.87)
- Mafia protection is a demanded commodity substituting for trust (similarity 0.85)
- 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 0.82)
- The mafia protects everyone from peasants to arms dealers (similarity 0.82)
- Protection supply can create its own demand rather than merely meet it. (similarity 0.81)
- Protection demand, not commodity prosperity, predicts mafia entry into a market. (similarity 0.81)
- Mafia protection makes distrust self-perpetuating and endogenous. (similarity 0.81)
- Mafia protection customers range from spot buyers to kin (similarity 0.81)
- Sicily’s robbery share vastly exceeded its population share in 1990 (similarity 0.81)
- Protection is a double-edged commodity blending shelter with extortion (similarity 0.81)
- The extortion-only view of mafia protection stems from an informational bias (similarity 0.81)
Broader Connections
- Mafia protection of thieves both encourages crime and drives victims to seek protection
#expands(0.95) — Diego Gambetta, The Sicilian Mafia The Business of…, 498 - Protection is a double-edged commodity blending shelter with extortion
#expands(0.90) — Diego Gambetta, The Sicilian Mafia The Business of…, 12 - Mafia protection requires maintaining relations with the underworld it polices
#corroborates(0.80) — Diego Gambetta, The Sicilian Mafia The Business of…, 438