They are better now than they were. They don't really use violence that anymore, and that's good. As long as they aren't doing violence, I have no problems with their activities. Everything they're involved in is legal for the government and they are way more corrupt and violent than the any mafia. The mafia probably has more morals than the government. The mafia usually doesn't target innocent people, and when they do, most of the time they guy who did gets in trouble. With the government, its just part of doing business.

Most people involved in "mafia" or "gangs" are just regular people, to them they don't know any different. There are whole families involved, generations of people raised in the same neighborhood or even house. The majority of people in those neighborhoods don't have education or good paying jobs so they find other ways to make money. Italians were discriminated against and weren't afforded these opportunities when they started to immigrate here in the late 1800s/early 1900s. Over the next 100 years they rose to be one of the highest earning ethnic groups in America. Growing up Italian in New York at that time you would have a significantly higher chance of joining a gang than you would today.