Be a criminal never was easy because you can't trust anyone and risk to be killed every moment and often is your best friend that pull the trigger or flip but what made wiseguys different was that in the glorious days,in my opinion from the 1930s to the Valachi hearings,was more easy to made money because the old guys that come from poverty was more tought and ready to go to prison (and like in Goodfellas the life in prison was more easy for a mobster) and also was more easy to bribe someone and even with the drugs you would have the garsh sentences of today.

For this reasons in to be a wiseguy there were more strengths than defects but now the wiseguys are like the other criminals and for this reason that many mobsters refused to be made because is like to put a target for the feds on his back.