The fascination is due to a few things.
1) think about a boss, a bully, or some sort of an injustice done to you or your family and you felt helpless or the police had their hands tied for whatever reason. The mafia would take care if it asap.
Here's a story. A guy works in a factory and his boss is after his wife so he is going out of his way to make life hard for the guy; making his work environment miserable. So,the poor guy goes to a the social club around the corner and explains his situation to a guy he knows from the neighborhood. The guy listens to his problem and tells him not to worry about it. A few days later as his jerk off boss is walking to his car, 2 mean looking guys confront him and give him a beating and scare the shit out of the guy. They then tell him if he ever even looks at their friend again, he will be eating all his future meals by way of a straw.
Problem solved !!!!
A nice guy puts a pool in his yard and spends about 75k on it. After he puts his pool in, his neighbor in back of him says his nice, new renovation is on his property by almost a foot. The neighbor goes to the town and asks that all that hard work and all that hard earned money get thrown away because he said its his property and he wants all the fencing and even the pool moved and he is taking it to court. Now this guy has a rather large yard and coming about 6 inches on his property isnt going to effect his quality if life; it was purely an accident but now he is taking advantage and threatening to sue the poor bastard. Distraught and stressed, he mentions his issue to a friend who knows a guy. 2 mean guys approach the jerk off while he is in his garage doing some painting. Without a word, the guy gets pummeled and warned if he doesnt drop the law suit and doesnt stop going to the town, his head is going be chopped off and shoved straight up his ass.

How bout this. Your daughter is at college a d some scumbag kid snaps a picture of her while she is passed out at a party and its on his facebook page. The kid wont take it down and the cops say there is nothing they could do. The only thing they suggest is that your daughter stay away from the guy and perhaps try to take him to court. The father contacts a cousin who has a few connected friends and tells his story. Fathers themselves, the connected guys can surely empathize with the guy so they take care of it. As the fa***t college kid leaves his dorm, he is cracked a few times with a black jack and thrown into a car which is driven to the back of a shopping mall. As the kid is basically shitting in his pants, the one guy gives his hair a nice jerk and shoves a gun in his mouth. He then proceeds to tell the guy if every single picture of that girl is'nt deleted from his phone and taken off facebook within 4 hours, he's going to be sent back to his parents in a suitcase missing his arms.
Thats why America loves the mob.