I ask myself what pushes a young Italian-American to become an associate and then a made man of the American Mafia, but I speak not only of NY or NJ but also of Philadelphia, Boston or Providence.
The Mafia controlled until the 80s Las Vegas, Atlantic City and the main trade unions, now with the RICO Act, risks hard sentences, and even in prison you have to be careful and to pay the protection to the the prison gangs.