Crime in the Poor Part of Town

Many of you may recall our earlier edition, All About Organized Crime.  In thinking through the neighborhoods of Garnock and the neighborhoods of Brinston, you might think that the poorer neighborhoods in Garnock are far worse to live in than the poor neighborhoods of Brinston.  That isn’t the case.

Even the poorest neighborhoods of Garnock have structure and rules.  The various families and gangs abide by these rules knowing that in the end, it’s better for everyone.  One of the reasons for this is that there really isn’t enough money to fight over.  When there isn’t any money, dying for something other than just trying to survive becomes silly.

In Brinston, there is always going to be some money.  Even in the poorer neighborhoods, there are ways to come by money.  There are criminal enterprises that can be performed for the wealthy, and there are rich homes that can be robbed.  While this seems like it might be the same in Garnock, Garnock is filled with experienced and lethal killers.  Brinston just doesn’t have the same level of infrastructure within its criminal enterprises.

In Brinston, things are far more chaotic.  A small gang of idiot kids can do a home invasion and profit enormously, but within a week, they are going to get jacked by another rival group of idiot kids.  The poor neighborhoods are cesspools of this dog-eat-dog violence, and there just isn’t a safe place to hide.  The only hope is to get enough coin together to get out of the neighborhood before it kills you.

To be clear, there is far less violence on the sands of the river shore.  Again, there is far less money to make violence worth it, plus these people are more of a small town community.  Certainly there are strangers everywhere, but the river shore communities typically know each other well enough that a young gang cannot hope to get away with chaotic crime.

We typically like these things to have a point, so here it is:  If you have not thought through how well established the criminals in your world are, then you probably should.  They might all be independent forces out there just trying to steal a buck, or they might be one enormous guild of thieves and robbers all reporting up the same structure, or hopefully somewhere in the middle.  But even once you do establish the infrastructure of crime, you also have to think through how those structures might change when you are talking about the different social classes.  The organization of criminals who prey on the poor, may be quite different from those who prey on the wealthy!