Editing Protection racket (section)

==Overview==
A protection racket is an operation where racketeers provide protection to persons and properties, settle disputes and enforce contracts in markets where the police and judicial system cannot be relied upon.

[[Diego Gambetta]]'s ''The Sicilian Mafia'' (1996)<ref name="Gambetta">{{cite book |last=Gambetta |first=Diego|author-link1=Diego Gambetta |year=1996 |title=The Sicilian Mafia: The Business of Private Protection |publisher=[[Harvard University Press]] |isbn=0-674-80742-1 }}</ref> and Federico Varese's ''The Russian Mafia'' (2001)<ref>{{cite book |last=Varese |first=Federico|year=2001 |title=The Russian Mafia: Private Protection in a New Market Economy |publisher=[[Oxford University Press]] |isbn=0-19-829736-X }}</ref> define the mafia as a type of [[organized crime]] group that specializes in the provision of private protection.

Protection racketeers or mafia groups operate mostly in the [[black market]], providing buyers and sellers the security they need for smooth transactions; but empirical data collected by Gambetta and Varese suggests that mafia groups are able to offer private protection to corporations and individuals in legal markets when the state fails to offer sufficient and efficient protection to the people in need. Two elements distinguish racketeers from legal [[security firm]]s. The first element is their willingness to deploy violent forms of retribution (going as far as [[premeditated murder|murder]]) that fall outside the limits the law normally extends to civilian security firms. The other element is that racketeers are willing to involve themselves in illegal markets.

Recent studies show that mafia groups or gangs are not the only form of protection racket or extra-legal protector, and another important form of protection racket is corrupt networks consisting of public officials, especially those from [[criminal justice]] agencies.<ref>{{cite journal |last=Wang |first=Peng |year=2013 |title=The rise of the Red Mafia in China: a case study of organised crime and corruption in Chongqing |journal=Trends in Organized Crime |volume=16 |issue=1 |pages=49–73 |doi=10.1007/s12117-012-9179-8 |s2cid=143858155 }}</ref> For example, Wang's ''The Chinese Mafia'' (2017)<ref>{{cite book |last=Wang |first=Peng |year=2017 |title=The Chinese Mafia: Organized Crime, Corruption, and Extra-Legal Protection |location=Oxford, England |publisher=[[Oxford University Press]] |isbn=978-0-19-875840-2 }}</ref> examines protection rackets in China and suggests two types of extra-legal protectors, namely the Black Mafia (local gangs) and the Red Mafia (networks of corrupt government officials). Wang's narrative suggests that local gangs are quasi-law enforcers in both legal and illegal markets, and corrupt public officials are extra-legal protectors, safeguarding local gangs, protecting illegal entrepreneurs in the criminal underworld, offering protection to businesspeople, and selling public appointments to buyers.