A protection racket is an organized criminal activity conducted by a group or gang.
In a normal protection racket a demand for money from a business or an individual is made to protect against the threat of harm to themselves or their property.
The individual or small group offering protection would be apart of the same group or gang that would do the damage, and they demands would be to simply stop their own group from attacking.
This is a form of extortion, funds the group that are the agressors, likely funding further criminal activities within the gang without dealing with the problem at its core.
The classic example is a gang extorting money from local businesses like shops, but this has been known to be applied to gang recruitment or slavery tactics by some groups.
The major difference is how personal these tactics can be on targeted individuals, an individual or a small group of people can pose as false hero or as a protective "friends" while people of the same group pose as a threat on a targeted individual.
The threatening compartment of the group can do multiple things to attack an individual directly and non directly, attacks on an individual directly can involve physical violence, theft and aggressive verbal language, such as threats of death.
Non direct attacks can involve, slanderous lying and character deformation among friends or in the community, the use of creating false reports to cause harassment using the police force via phone, using the targeted individuals name while committing a crime or being troublesome to the public, such as shouting out at night in public nabourhoods while covering the face or using the targeted individuals name while graffitiing.
In the modern era digital attacks can take place using social networking, this can also be direct and indirect, threats can be via private messaging using account with false names, false accounts with the target individuals name can be made to make an individual seem bad, attacked towards an individual can be made by other accounts while blocking the target individual from seeing such online attacks, blocking an individual from knowing and defending against, private hate groups and group coordination can also take place on social media platforms.
Other tools can be used to create damaging content on an individual with the use of photo editing tools or artificial intelligence and images posted on social media.
Having a troublesome group following an individual can simply be enough to have an outcasting effect over a long period of time, this is because other individuals and establishments may not be able to deal with the problems that the group may cause.
There there is a huge amount psychological factors that can effect a targeted individual, the need for protection and mental wellbeing is a very important, pushing an individual to seek protection that an individual may feel that local polices forces can not provide.
The protective factor in an individuals personality provides a positive reinforcement of an image of person providing what seems to be protection against an attacking group.
Further slander and character deformation may continue in the background to keep an individual disconnected from anyone outside the group.
The target maybe monitored further and interaction with people outside the group maybe intercepted and relationships can be destroyed, this can be done violence or other forms of cohesion.
With no where else to turn, after a major disconnect from the life a targeted individual once knew, new connections formed with a false savior can lead a person into a more negative lifestyle based on a new group of people the target individual maybe associating with after the attacks.
This new lifestyle will likely also be planned just like the original attacks.
The false savior overtime may become more violent and controlling of a targeted individuals life or continue to operate a violent group around an individual to keep the appearance of the hero.
This new lifestyle can cause a form of stockholm syndrome where the unknown captured individual may acquire psychological bond with their captors.
Stockholm syndrome is often seen in hostage situations, but also applies to victims of domestic violence, cults, and other abusive relationships.
Many of our personality traits and activities can be acquired from the people around us, and if the target individual is introduced to a bad group by their false hero, the individual may acquire a taste for drugs and partake in group activities which can involve criminal activities.
A group which an individual is placed in can also be used to desensitize and individual from situations the group are involved in, this can include drugs, sexual extortion, or other gang related crimes.
The key to protecting oneself from this is knowing who you have met just before and during an attack, if a small group or an individual seems to be the saviors or the heros, be cautious of your feeling towards them, you do not need further a relationship with them, and if avoiding them leads to the trouble returning, if the same group or individual continues to be the saviors or heros, that maybe a key sign there maybe more to their involvement in the attacks.
It is especially suspicious if they return explaining how they have been helping to save yourself from attacks, or if they always seem to be just around the corner to save the day, not matter where you are.
The wisest approach would be to seek multiple people for help rather than return to the same group or individual for help.