The Myth of Security: Parallels Between Policing, Military Rackets, and Modern Cybersecurity Organizations

Introduction
The conception of "security" has evolved substantially across societies, yet it often remains clouded by myths, misperceptions, and vested interests. This thesis interrogates the myth of security by critically analyzing the historical and contemporary roles of policing and military institutions—especially in the United States—as well as the emergent industry of cybersecurity. At the core lies a provocative comparison: both state-sanctioned security apparatuses (e.g., police, military, and cybersecurity organizations) and infamous criminal rackets (like the Mafia and the Camorra) operate not solely to ensure safety but to maintain forms of social control, monopoly, and economic extraction. Ultimately, this research argues that genuine security is less about force, secrecy, or surveillance than about transparency, collective cooperation, and caring diplomacy.
To build this argument, the report traces the origins of US policing and its entanglement with racial and economic subjugation; examines the rise and structure of criminal protection rackets; analyzes the converging logic of official and unofficial security enterprises—including the privatization of military force and cyber defense; and draws on theoretical and empirical evidence emphasizing transparency and cooperation as the truest paths to durable security. Throughout, historical facts are juxtaposed with contemporary case studies, and references from a spectrum of scholarly works, official documents, and investigative journalism are invoked for comprehensive analysis.

I. Early Origins of Policing in the United States
The system of modern policing in the US did not arise from a straightforward commitment to public safety but from specific mechanisms aimed at social and economic control. Prior to the emergence of formal, government-backed police departments, colonial America relied on voluntary watches and constables. This "watch system"—founded on English models—comprised citizens tasked with patrolling communities, often motivated by economic incentive, punishment avoidance, or social compulsion rather than public spirit. Despite this, early watches were notoriously lax; accounts abound of night watchmen sleeping or drinking on duty, and conscription into such roles was a disliked civic burden.
As urbanization increased in the 19th century, the inadequacies of volunteer systems became apparent. By the 1830s, population growth, immigration, and social change gave way to the first centralized, professionalized municipal police departments—Boston (1838), New York (1845), and others soon followed. These bodies, while rhetorically committed to “crime control,” were in practice chiefly concerned with suppressing labor unrest, disciplining marginalized communities, and maintaining public order as defined by economic elites.

II. Policing as an Instrument of Racial and Social Control
Beneath the veneer of crime prevention, the American policing project has always been entangled with the maintenance of white supremacy. Nowhere is this clearer than in the origins and operations of slave patrols in the South. Beginning in South Carolina in 1704 and replicated across other colonies, these patrols were legally empowered to surveil, discipline, and terrorize enslaved Africans. Their threefold function was to recapture runaways, prevent insurrection, and enforce plantation discipline—by violence if necessary.
The legacy of slave patrols bled directly into post-Civil War institutions. Even after the technical abolition of slavery, Black Americans were subjected to discriminatory laws (Black Codes, and later Jim Crow), which police and local militias vigorously enforced. Militia-style policing persisted throughout Reconstruction and into the 20th century, as did the extrajudicial violence of vigilante groups like the Ku Klux Klan—organizations that mirrored, and in many cases overlapped with, public policing.
Statistical and qualitative research consistently reveals the persistence of racially biased law enforcement. In modern times, African Americans are disproportionately stopped, searched, arrested, and subjected to use of force—patterns long established and deeply ingrained in the DNA of US policing.

III. Police Involvement in Labor Suppression and Union Busting
Besides racial control, policing in America also evolved to safeguard the interests of capital against labor. With the rise of industrialization in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, police were routinely deployed to break strikes, suppress union organizing, and protect strikebreakers—a pattern evident in iconic events such as the Haymarket Affair (1886) in Chicago. During the Haymarket rally for the eight-hour workday, police surged into a crowd of labor protesters, and a bomb exploded, killing several officers. The violent aftermath saw a crackdown on labor leaders, with questionable legal proceedings, mass arrests, and the eventual execution or imprisonment of many activists.
Throughout the Gilded Age and Progressive Era, police and state militias disrupted labor actions, often acting at the behest of industrialists. Private detective agencies, such as the Pinkertons, also played significant roles in anti-union activities, sometimes supplemented by newly formed state police forces created explicitly to bypass municipal sympathies toward workers. The suppression of labor became a model for the expansion of policing powers in the service of elite economic interests—again reflecting a pattern seen in criminal rackets governing by their own monopolies of force.

IV. Police and Military Organizations as Rackets
A central thesis of this report is that both police/military organizations and criminal protection rackets rest on the promise (real or constructed) of security—often enforced through the threat of violence, secrecy, and the maintenance of monopolistic power. The etymology and practice of "racketeering" involves groups offering protection from harm—frequently harm that they themselves threaten to inflict—recalling the infamous “protection money” schemes of the Mafia.
Across history, the “warrior class”—whether embodied by the police, military, or private contractors—has been capable of transforming from protectors into extractors. Particularly in conditions of crisis or perceived threats, the few can seize power by promising security from elusive, sometimes imaginary, enemies. The less oversight and the more secretive the operation, the greater the risk of racketeering logic dominating. When security services—public or private—become ends unto themselves, detached from popular oversight or reciprocal accountability, they frequently devolve into rackets, extracting rent from those they claim to protect.
Recent decades have seen the rise of private military contractors (PMCs)—firms such as Blackwater (now part of Constellis)—receiving billions in government contracts for military and security services, often with little transparency or legal accountability. Blackwater’s notorious actions in Iraq, including the Nisour Square massacre, highlight the danger of unaccountable power acting under the pretext of security. These new mercenary forces blur the distinction between legitimate security and racket-like extraction, sometimes operating with the same impunity as their criminal counterparts.

V. Mafia and Criminal Protection Rackets: History and Structure
The Mafia—be it Cosa Nostra in Sicily, the Camorra in Naples, the Russian krysha, or others—has historically flourished wherever official security is absent, inept, or complicit. These clandestine organizations provide services—protection from violence, resolution of disputes, market regulation—in return for loyalty and tribute. Crucially, this protection is as much against themselves as it is against outside threats—offering a textbook case of the manufactured demand for security that defines a racket.
Scholarly research has shed light on the nuanced sociology and organizational architecture of Mafia groups. Despite popular myths, Mafias are not simply collections of criminals but are complex, quasi-formalized organizations imbued with codes of honor, rituals for induction, and strict hierarchies. These groups are constantly learning and adapting, combining familial ties with pragmatic alliances, and using violence, secrecy, and reputation to consolidate control. The Camorra, for example, is structured horizontally—with independent clans competing or collaborating—making it notably resilient to decapitation by law enforcement.

VI. Comparative Analysis: Mafia Versus Official Security Organizations
Despite ostensible opposition, Mafia-like organizations and state-sanctioned security agencies often mirror each other in form and function. Both operate under hierarchical structures, rely on codes (of conduct, law, or omertà), and establish monopolies over violence. Both can extract tribute—whether through taxes, fines, protection money, or contract enforcement. Both wield soft and hard power, controlling economies, adjudicating disputes, and enforcing “order”—the Mafia outside the law, official agencies within it.
The critical difference lies in legitimacy and perceived public interest. States claim to serve the common good, while Mafias are explicitly self-interested. Yet history abounds with collusion between officialdom and organized crime—cases where public officials act as enforcers for criminal interests, or where weakened or corrupt states contract with mafias for auxiliary security.
The privatization and outsourcing of military and police functions repeat this pattern. Private security firms are often compared to rackets; in some cases, the only distinction is legal recognition. PMCs such as Blackwater and Constellis profit from contracts to provide life-or-death security, evoking direct analogies to Mafia rackets, sometimes with similar abuses and lack of transparency.

Comparative Table: Key Features of Traditional Mafia Rackets and Official Security Organizations

Table Explanation: The lines between security provision, extraction, and protection are blurred when we analyze the structure and logic of both mafias and formal security institutions. The most salient difference remains in legal status and public image, not necessarily in everyday practice or impact on marginalized communities.

VII. Private Military Contractors and Corporate Security
The late 20th and early 21st centuries witnessed an explosion in privatized security services—both domestic and international. PMCs like Blackwater, DynCorp, Academi, and Constellis operate in war zones and disaster areas, providing services once the exclusive purview of state militaries. These organizations frequently receive large no-bid contracts, enjoy immunity from local laws, and are largely unaccountable, raising perennial concerns about the privatization of violence and the logic of extractive racketeering.
The rationale for outsourcing security is often framed in terms of efficiency, expertise, and flexibility. Yet in practice, such privatization frequently results in diminished transparency, increased abuses, and blurred lines of accountability. In effect, the state contracts out its monopoly on violence to actors who benefit most when insecurity persists—a defining logic of the racket.

VIII. Evolution of Cybersecurity Organizations and Agencies
Parallel to these trends, the digital age has seen the rapid rise of cybersecurity as a new field of security. Government agencies (like the Department of Homeland Security’s National Cybersecurity and Communications Integration Center) and a burgeoning array of private cybersecurity firms assert themselves as indispensable defenders of infrastructure, business, and government against evolving digital threats.
Official discourses stress the existential danger of cybercrime, cyberterrorism, and hybrid threats posed by state and non-state actors; in response, a massive industry of defense contractors, incident responders, and information-sharing organizations has developed. Yet the cybersecurity sector often shares uncanny similarities with physical security rackets of the past: the construction (and sometimes exaggeration) of threats, lack of accountability, proprietary secrecy, and a business model predicated on a perpetual cycle of risk and remediation—with little incentive toward a permanent resolution.
As the history of mafia protection rackets demonstrates, the provision of security often creates dependencies rather than resilience. In the cyberspace realm, the challenge is compounded by rapid technological change and uneven knowledge—a situation ripe for both legitimate and exploitative intermediaries to thrive.

IX. Parallels Between Traditional Security Rackets and the Cybersecurity Industry
The logics driving traditional protection rackets and modern cybersecurity industries dovetail in notable ways:
Both flourish where insecurity is high and formal protections are perceived as inadequate or opaque.
Both maintain their own “markets of violence,” adapting quickly to evade oversight or capitalize on emergent threats.
Both profit from offering solutions to threats—sometimes manufactured or exaggerated—that only they are reputedly prepared to counter.
Both operate in environments of secrecy and technical complexity, relying on information asymmetry to maintain their position.
For example, “cybercrime-as-a-service” marketplaces mirror criminal rackets in offering subscription models for digital extortion; some cybersecurity providers face incentives to overstate risks or provide proprietary, non-transparent solutions that entrench customer dependence.

X. Transparency-Security Dilemma: Theoretical Perspectives
Traditional and contemporary security systems share a deep ambivalence toward transparency. The “security dilemma” describes how actions taken to enhance one party’s security (e.g., arming, secret-keeping) often decrease security overall by provoking suspicion, arms races, or outright conflict among others.
Many scholars and practitioners have since argued, with growing evidence, that increased transparency, open information exchange, and cooperative diplomacy actually build more effective security. At the international level, instruments like the UN Register of Conventional Arms and confidence-building measures (CBMs) have demonstrated that mutual openness can decrease tensions and prevent conflict escalation. Conversely, excessive secrecy breeds mistrust, can provide cover for corruption, and undermines democratic oversight.
At the community level, research from both the US and Nordic contexts suggests that transparency in police-community interactions increases trust and cooperative outcomes. For instance, simple “transparency statements” by police officers—openly communicating motives—have measurably increased trust among over-policed populations.

XI. International Transparency Initiatives in the Security Sector
Contemporary global security governance places increasing emphasis on transparency as an enabler of peace. The United Nations’ Open Government Partnership, arms-control reporting, and anti-money laundering regimes all stress open, comparable, and timely information as prerequisites for trust and effective security management.
However, persistent gaps remain: many states report inconsistently, verification mechanisms are weak or lacking, and non-democratic regimes tend to resist disclosure, especially in times of crisis. Still, the trend is unmistakable. Even organizations with ingrained cultures of secrecy, like NATO, have faced internal and external pressures to open more decision-making data and operational records. Civil society initiatives, cooperative oversight bodies, and public access to information have all contributed to greater democratic control over security organizations—though these reforms are far from universal.

XII. Community-based and Cooperative Security Models
Empirical studies and case examples repeatedly affirm that community-driven, cooperative, and transparent models of security are most effective for producing real and lasting safety. The contrast is particularly clear in comparisons between punitive, militarized approaches and Nordic or consensus-based policing systems.
In the Nordic model, high levels of public trust, low corruption, and social safety nets provide a structural foundation for security less reliant on force or secrecy. Freedoms of information, oversight, and clear legal restraints underpin police legitimacy and low crime rates. Conversely, where policing is seen as coercive, biased, or self-serving—as in many US communities, particularly among minorities—trust collapses, and insecurity grows.
Cooperative security is also evident in historical counter-examples to formal law enforcement; for example, “self-liberated” Black towns in Florida and alliances between escaped slaves, Native American, and Spanish authorities created workable alternatives to the dominance of white power structures, relying on negotiation, collaboration, and community discipline over enforced terror.
Even within troubled US cities, programs prioritizing dialogue and partnership between police and community residents have demonstrated measurable successes. The Justice Department’s Strengthening Police-Community Partnerships (SPCP) program in Erie, Pennsylvania, led to documented increases in trust and reduced tension through structured dialogue and inclusive problem-solving processes.

XIII. Military Institutions in US Domestic Control
Militarized approaches to domestic "security" have a long and fraught history in the US. The National Guard and federal troops have been repeatedly deployed, not just in natural disasters but during moments of social unrest, protests, labor strikes, and civil rights demonstrations—from putting down the Whiskey Rebellion and Civil War to suppressing Reconstruction, the 1960s civil rights movement, and the more recent George Floyd protests.
These deployments frequently send the message that security is synonymous with the threat of state violence. Rather than securing communities, such interventions often fuel long-term mistrust, trauma, and resistance—a clear demonstration of the failure of force-based security to address underlying social problems.

XIV. Criminal Security Rackets Beyond the Mafia
The logic of security-for-rent extends well beyond Italian or American mafias. In the post-Soviet era, Russian businesses widely relied on "krysha"—criminal protection rackets by local gangs—as the state failed to provide basic commercial security. In the United Kingdom, the Kray twins and other underworld figures operated under similar paradigms, blurring the line between the official justice system and criminal order.
Globally, wherever law enforcement is perceived as predatory, corrupt, or absent, parallel criminal or paramilitary organizations fill the vacuum—sometimes providing rough order and dispute resolution, at other times compounding violence, extraction, and insecurity.

XV. Case Studies: Effective Security Through Transparency and Cooperation
Several real-world examples and empirical studies demonstrate how transparency, cooperative frameworks, and diplomacy yield genuine improvements in security:
Haymarket Affair (1886): While tragic in outcome, public transparency around the trial and subsequent pardons drew attention to the failures of secretive, biased justice—a lesson that inspired reform and, in the long term, strengthened labor and civil society organizations.
UN Arms Register: Since 1991, the UN Register of Conventional Arms has improved voluntary transparency in weapons transfers, acting as an early-warning mechanism to prevent destabilizing buildups and supporting the case for preventive diplomacy, even as reporting compliance remains incomplete.
Erie SPCP Program: The community-police partnership in Erie, Pennsylvania, yielded self-reported reductions in racial tension and increased perceptions of safety, not through increased repression but via trust-building dialogue and joint decision-making.
Nordic Transparency: Countries like Sweden, Norway, and Denmark, with high freedom-of-information, robust anti-corruption regimes, and consensus-driven policing, achieve remarkable outcomes in public trust and safety, demonstrating that open societies are, in fact, more secure.

XVI. Conclusion: Reconstructing Security—From Racket to Relationship
The dominant myths surrounding security—rooted in narratives of force, secrecy, and expert-led protection—mask the historical and present-day reality that true security must be relational, transparent, and participatory. Both public (police/military/cybersecurity agencies) and private/criminal security organizations can, without oversight and democratic accountability, devolve into rackets that extract more than they protect, perpetuate cycles of violence or dependency, and erode public trust.
This comprehensive examination of US policing history, the rise and resilience of criminal rackets, the analogs within modern cybersecurity industries, and the lessons of both domestic and international transparency initiatives points to a clear conclusion:
Security achieved by secrecy, isolation, and force is at best partial, fragile, and often counterproductive. Security rooted in transparency, inclusive cooperation, and caring diplomacy—whether at the level of neighborhoods or nations—is stronger, more sustainable, and more just.
To move past the myth of security, we must dismantle coercive and extractive rackets—official and unofficial alike—and invest instead in the open, cooperative relationships that form the only genuine foundation for safety and peace in an interconnected, interdependent world.