A lot of street gangs nowadays are much more powerful and entrenched than 20 or 30 years ago, and many of the traditional organized crime families are much weaker and less influential than in years past. So I got to thinking: is there some sort of 'mutual respect' type of thing that exists between certain large street gangs and traditional organized crime families, whereby each group respects the influence/power of the other group enough to prevent clashes or 'turf' problems?

You'd think that at some point, in certain cities or neighborhoods, members of various street gangs and La Cosa Nostra families might cross paths or be engaged in certain rackets that might place them at odds against each other? Whether it be drug dealing, grand theft, prostitution, etc., the potential for conflicts between two separate criminal entities over certain rackets is all but guaranteed.

I started thinking about this last week when I read that book by Crips co-founder Tookie Williams. He wrote about a time when he and some fellow crips were planning on entering into a 'deal' with some East coast mobsters out here in LA. Supposedly, Tookie and his cohorts were going to be used as muscle to help the East coast wiseguys pull of some robbery. In the end, the deal fell through and the police busted the meeting when one of the purported wiseguys turned out to be with law enforcement (or working with law enforcement).

But what got me thinking was, if a mafia family would consider using an established street gang as muscle, that would mean the mobsters don't have enough muscle on their own and have to turn to another criminal group that has more muscle. And if that's the case, would that mean the street gang was as formidable and as dangerous as the mob family? Perhaps more so?

Tookie wrote in his book that he wasn't all that concerned with dealing with mobsters, since he felt that mobsters were flesh and blood like anyone else, and that they could bleed just like anyone else.

Granted, much of what Tookie wrote in his book may be fabricated or aggrandized, but it's still food for thought.

The mob is always portrayed in movies as the top dog in the criminal world, and of course it's glamorized like no other group. But I've often wondered what would happen if, let's say, a Crip set or even a Latin Kings set decided to encroach on an established LCN neighborhood or business? Or, if an LCN family decided to rob or cheat a shot caller in one of the above mentioned gangs?
At some point it would seem logical that a confrontation would come down to numbers and/or firepower.