I feel that there are 2 types of gangsters. The smart ones, and
the stupid ones. But unfortunately, gangsters here seems to fall
predominantly in the latter group.
the smart gangsters create illegal gambling syndicates, legal
investments, legal and illegal moneylending.
but the dumb ones just only know how to take orders from the
smart ones, without thinking of the consequences. e.g. the back
alley gang fights, pimps, drug trafficker, small-time loanshark.
These pawns are often the ones getting caught, and the ones who
paid for their crimes, while their smart gang chiefs live rich off
these disposable pawns.
and often, these pawns are lowly educated people, or people who
are lazy to make a honest living, or worse, a combination of
both.
often, you can read of school-dropouts being arrested for
working as runners for loansharks, or people who want to make easy
money. $50 to pour paint at a debtor's house, as oppose to working
8hrs distributing flyers (also $50).
this group of people are the scourge of society, not
contributing, and yet making life hard for others.
to cut down on the appeal of gangsterism, it is necessary to
impose very harsh penalties, to disuade the potential group of
people from even having the thought of joining a gang.
one case study we can use is the negligible number of
singaporean drug mules.
Since singapore imposed a mandatory death sentence for those
caught of trafficking drugs, we rarely see singaporean (even drug
addicts), risking their life to bring in drugs. Most of the
traffickers caught are foreigners.
following this train of thought, if we impose very harsh
penalties on gang-joining, people who reconsider the risk, and we
would see a decrease in gang-related activities, since the number
of people involved in the gang circle would be smaller.