Protection racket

A protection racket is an extortion scheme whereby a powerful organization, most often a criminal organization or gang, coerces individuals or businesses to pay protection money which allegedly serves to purchase the organization's "protection" services against various external threats, whereas usually the actual threat comes from the organization itself. Those who do not buy into the protection plan are often targeted by the organization and are harassed to try to force payment of the protection money.

The protection money is typically collected by a "Bag Man". Although the organization might be particularly coercive in obtaining protection money, it is usually careful to shelter its "mark" from attacks by competitor organizations that similarly attempt to solicit or threaten the targeted individuals or businesses. Disputes between organizations concerning "turf" or territory consequently arise from two competing predators attempting to extort from the same "clients."

The term has been expanded by feminists to refer to men who 'rescue' women by insisting on protecting them from dangerous strangers when it is actually the so-called protector who will turn on the woman who rejects his protection and deprives him of his excuse for violence. Ellen Goodman noted (4/14/06) that this analogy can be extended to the current U.S. executive, where preemptive violence provokes blowback that tends to affect women and children most.

See also