Depends on what conditions there are where you live and the situation of your neighborhood.

There's a different mafia tradition here in Istanbul. Formerly they were mostly those who worked in a show business invironment.

There was a serious political war between the nationalists and the communists. But after the military junta in 1980 many nationalists began to get money by mafia in order to help their friends in prison. Actually the nationalist mafia had begun before 1980. Even the assassin of the Pope was a nationalist named Mehmet Ali Agca who had been kept in jail along 20 years in Italia. Thus the mafia understanding completely changed.

When I was 17 I joined into one of the nationalists group that has no affinity with the mafia. But another nationalist group were inciting the youth to join themselves. I had a gun at that date. I really wished to work together with them. But Thanks God the good friends of mine convinced me that my future would be destroyed if I had joined them. I don't believe that a man ever needs to carry a gun or do wrong things to make things better. The mafia seems attractive only in the movies. My other friends who are now in jail are praying for the salvation.
May God help them

de Mirel