Quote Originally Posted by flenna View Post
My father grew up in Brooklyn and it was well known the mafia ran the neighborhoods. Interestingly enough he said the neighborhoods were never safer than when the mob ran them. No one messed with old people or kids, your Mom could walk down the block at midnight and feel safe. All the violence was mafioso on mafioso and gang on gang. Anyone messing with a kid or elderly person was found in a dumpster the next day.
I know what you refer to, at the same time if those old folks owned a business and couldn't come up with protection money, they might end up in the dumpster. The mafia does understand PR and certainly doesn't tolerate a lot of competition from "other" criminals and the create the misconception that they protect their own neighborhoods.

And typically they are deep enough into every level of local crime that they don't personally come after the locals who live there and they often depend upon them as a form of intelligence network. But if somebody kills grandma for her collection of antique silver dollars or some drug addict kills somebody else for drug money, at the end of the day part of that score of silver coins got kicked up to somebody and the local mafia got a piece of the proceeds from every drug sale in the area.

Factor in that in many areas the cops are paid off and to the untrained eye it might "look" like the mafia is some kind of neighborhood watch when needed.