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The old ethnic mobs, like the Mafia or the Chinese tongs, were the extra legal enforcement of urban neighborhoods. They made their money through vices like gambling, the sex trade, and drugs, but they enforced a type of order the police didn't interfere with. Federal crackdowns, the disappearance of the ethnic neighborhoods, legalization of vices, and the rise of the Latin drug cartels (who don't care about protecting the Hispanic neighborhoods) ended the old school Italian, Chinese, Irish, and Jewish gangs. I am not saying they were good people but they would have effectively dealt with squatters.