Concept

Protection racket

A protection racket is a type of racket and a scheme of organized crime perpetrated by a potentially hazardous organized crime group that generally guarantees protection outside the sanction of the law to another entity or individual from violence, robbery, ransacking, arson, vandalism, and other such threats, in exchange for payments at regular intervals. Each payment is called "protection money" or a "protection fee". An organized crime group determines an affordable or reasonable fee by negotiating with each of its payers, to ensure that each payer can pay the fee on a regular basis and on time. Protections rackets can vary in terms of their levels of sophistication or organization; it is not uncommon for their operations to emulate the structures or methods used by tax authorities within legitimate governments to collect taxes from taxpayers. The perpetrators of a protection racket may protect vulnerable targets from other dangerous individuals and groups or may simply offer to refrain from themselves carrying out attacks on the targets, and usually both of these forms of protection are implied in the racket. Due to the frequent implication that the racketeers may contribute to harming the target upon failure to pay, the protection racket is generally considered a form of extortion. In some instances, the main potential threat to the target may be caused by the same group that offers to solve it in return for payment, but that fact may sometimes be concealed in order to ensure continual patronage and funding of the crime syndicate by the coerced party. The protection racket sells physical security. Through the credible threat of violence, the racketeers deter both third-party criminals and people in their own criminal organization from swindling, robbing, injuring, sabotaging, or otherwise harming their clients. The racket often occurs in situations and places where criminal threats to certain businesses, entities, or individuals are not effectively prevented or addressed by the prevailing system of law and order or governance, or in cases of inadequate protection by the law for certain ethnic or socioeconomic groups.

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Related lectures (1)
Related concepts (9)
Blackmail
Blackmail is an act of coercion using the threat of revealing or publicizing either substantially true or false information about a person or people unless certain demands are met. It is often damaging information, and it may be revealed to family members or associates rather than to the general public. These acts can also involve using threats of physical, mental or emotional harm, or of criminal prosecution, against the victim or someone close to the victim. It is normally carried out for personal gain, most commonly of position, money, or property.
Racketeering
Racketeering is a type of organized crime in which the persons set up a coercive, fraudulent, extortionary, or otherwise illegal coordinated scheme or operation (a "racket") to repeatedly or consistently collect a profit. Originally and often still specifically, racketeering may refer to an organized criminal act in which the perpetrators offer a service that will not be put into effect, offer a service to solve a nonexistent problem, or offer a service that solves a problem that would not exist without the racket.
Extortion
Extortion is the practice of obtaining benefit through coercion. In most jurisdictions it is likely to constitute a criminal offence; the bulk of this article deals with such cases. Robbery is the simplest and most common form of extortion, although making unfounded threats in order to obtain an unfair business advantage is also a form of extortion.
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