Pubdate: Fri, 07 Sep 2001
Source: Ottawa Citizen (CN ON)
Copyright: 2001 The Ottawa Citizen
Contact:  http://www.canada.com/ottawa/ottawacitizen/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/326
Author: John Robson
Note: Robson is Senior Writer and Deputy Editorial Pages Editor

HEY, EVERYONE, HOW ABOUT A GREAT BIG HAND FOR  ORGANIZED CRIME?

A letter denouncing motorcycle gangs in Wednesday's Citizen expressed a 
common view that "The time has come for our lawmakers to enact special laws 
that will pertain only to such organizations. It is time for our society to 
be scrubbed clean of this infestation." That's unfair. Perhaps many bikers 
are large, antisocial and illgroomed, and the police may be right that some 
occasionally stray onto the wrong side of the law. So what? Organized crime 
gets a bad rap.

"Vice" crimes based on mutual consent, unlike say muggings, are victimless 
when carried out successfully. But for obvious reasons, a drug buyer who 
gets plaster dust instead of cocaine, a dealer whose stash is ripped off, 
or a prostitute whose client doesn't pay can't call the cops. Someone has 
to enforce these contracts. Restaurants couldn't operate if one in 10 
customers did the "dine and dash," and nor can drug dealers. That's where 
organized crime, from the Mafia to criminal biker gangs, come in: They are 
the cops for people who can't call the cops.

Contrary to myth, the mob can't make a living shaking down shoe stores for 
"protection." Even if nine out of 10 paid up, one stubborn cuss would call 
the cops and they'd be nailed. And it's bad economics to suggest the cops 
might be corrupt, too. How could the Mafia and a bunch of corrupt cops all 
subsist on a fraction of the profits from marginal businesses? But the vice 
trade not only needs protection, it can afford it, because it has high 
profit margins, both to compensate providers for large risks and because 
its members usually don't pay taxes. Given the difficulty of enforcing 
contracts in this demimonde, it's efficient for providers and enforcers to 
be the same people.

Organized criminals are the antithesis of muggers: They provide valued 
services, and keep neighbourhoods quiet. The last thing they want is 
trouble. I might not seek the company of a large group of motorcycle 
enthusiasts in a lonely spot after they'd been savouring the products of 
the adult beverage industry, but there are many more dangerous places to 
live than next to a bikers' clubhouse. As Kid Shelleen says in Cat Ballou, 
"when a gunfighter's around, trouble just naturally stays away." I'll take 
a profit and imageconscious Mafia don over a crackhead with an Uzi any day.

I'm not saying organized crime is harmless. Gangsters have turf wars, 
though they mostly kill each other. Also, Canada's police are 
extraordinarily honest, though there are always a few bad apples. But when 
you find serious police corruption here, it's linked to the vice trade. An 
officer making $50,000 a year is vulnerable to bribes from people making 
$50 million, especially since winking at a crap game isn't like winking at 
murder.

Another cost is the erosion of the presumption of innocence and equality 
before the law. Yesterday's Citizen reported that Ontario Liberal justice 
critic Michael Bryant plans a private members' bill to let cities ban 
fortified biker clubhouses. "The time has come for biker gangs to get out 
from behind their brick walls, their bulletproof glass and their bombproof 
doors and face the music like every other Ontarian." Uh, what music? 
Besides, he added "This isn't about putting a security camera outside of 
Queen's Park or outside of a bank or outside of a mansion in Rosedale. The 
police and municipalities would have no problem making distinctions between 
biker gang fortresses on one hand and those who want to be using security 
cameras for legitimate purposes on the other." So the idea is precisely to 
deprive one group of its civil rights without the tedium of first 
convicting them of anything. Oh, and which is more likely to attract a bomb 
that might kill innocent bystanders, a clubhouse that is fortified or one 
that isn't?

I don't believe in banning voluntary acts between consenting adults. I'm 
not indifferent to morality, though I'm not convinced it's wrong to play 
poker, smoke marijuana or even do both at once. But I am sure a society is 
not free unless it draws a clear distinction between having a right to do 
something and being right to do it.

If you don't agree, does the harm you think we prevent by outlawing what 
you consider vice outweigh the cost, including the inevitable flourishing 
of organized crime to enforce vice crime contracts? The less persuasive you 
find my argument that organized crime is mostly harmless, the more you 
should ponder which you fear more in your neighbourhood: legal marijuana or 
outlaw bikers.
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MAP posted-by: Beth