The reader may wonder how the foregoing tallies with the commonplace view of the mafia as offering protection from danger and distrust, which the mafia itself creates. The mafia does not, in other words, supply a real service but merely practices extortion. This view is in part the result of an informational bias exaggerating the effect of extortion as opposed to those transactions in which the likelihood of being cheated (or being caught cheating) is truly reduced as a result of protection. We hear more about the former simply because dealers are more likely to talk to the police in this case than in the latter.

DEFINE: Distinguishes genuine protection from mere extortion, clarifying that mafia services can include real enforcement against cheating.

Diego Gambetta, The Sicilian Mafia The Busi…, loc. 72