No. Like seen in current poor areas around the world, the poor often prey on each other to avoid the police. When I was stationed in California during the early 80s there was a major problem of RW Vietnamese gangs preying on Vietnamese boat people who settled in the Garden Grove. When there's a large influx of immigrants, regardless of time period or culture, they often try to group together. The majority are just trying to make a better life for themselves and their families, but there are always a few assholes who try to fuck over their own people. That was the case there, the case of Irish and Italians living in New York and Boston ghettos and the current case in American ghettos. They preyed on their own kind because it's safer to do so than attack outside their community.
My understanding is that people in such situations feel that if they go to the police, they won't be protected and highly vulnerable to attack by the dominant gangs. This problem is cross-cultural and completely human. Another example of mankind's brutality against fellow man.