Editing Bandit (section)

=== Urban gangs and organized crime ===
The same basic principles that lead people to become rural bandits in the middle ages also applied to people in an urban setting. If you get a lot of poor working class people together in a single place, some will seek a better life through less than legal means: from stealing apples off unwatched carts to selling odds and ends without a formal vendors' permit from the local lord/guild/town council/market authority to flogging smuggled or stolen goods or contraband, picking pockets, fishing for hats, breaking and entering, robbing people at knife-point in dark alleys, beating people up to steal their stuff and murdering people for coin-purses. Likewise, cities offer plenty of bolt-holes and the ability to blend in with a crowd. These petty criminals often gang up to carry out bigger jobs and reap bigger rewards.

Often gangs will rise up from people which have something in common. It can be that they all grew up on the same street from families which are mostly employed in the same job. In particular, people from marginalized groups will often form gangs. A wave of poor immigrants arrives in an area with nothing but the shirts on their back. They form enclaves in a city where they speak their own language and do business with people which don't look down on them. They often do the mucky jobs and are looked down on by large sections of society for doing these mucky jobs, "stealing jobs" and other more overtly racist bullshit. This ranges from dirty looks to acts of violence. In such a situation, some of the migrants and their kids will band together against aggression, among other illicit activities on the side (because if people are going to see you as a born criminal no matter what you do, you may as well become one in reality and get something out of it). It's a story which has unfolded numerous times, across many places and with groups.

Gangs often come and go. Many people who get into gangs (especially the lighter gangs which avoid the seriously nasty shit) as kids will eventually leave as they grow up, settling down into quiet normal lives. Eventually enough people leave that the remainder give up and either go their own way or join a new gang if they are so inclined and all that remains (if anything) is a circle of a few old guys who might reminisce about a rough and reckless youth now and again. But if conditions are right (ie, if there's a lot of money in it), the gang can persist and grow. People stay on and establish themselves and hone their skills as new members are inducted while other gangs either ally with the ascendant one, are absorbed or in extreme cases destroyed. If that happens eventually you can get into full fledged Organized Crime. These are far more ambitious in scope, and can grow into something akin to their own nation-state, complete with their own "laws" and customs. Even so, the model they follow most closely is a corporate one: there's a few wealthy guys on top who run everything, middle management, various departments that handle things from payroll, medical support, quality control, gun procurement and public relations, ground level leaders, the rank and file of workers and fighters, temporary muscle which is hired when needed and often a diversified portfolio of investments ranging from extortion and drugs to growing avocados. Of course, if someone breaks a Crime Syndicate's rules "getting fired" can be a lot more literal.