A guy gets Made..  One of his perks is that he gets to sponsor someone.  Quite a privilege, the Made (or above) gets a cut of his earnings, gets an extra pair of ands and gets to experience what it's like to be in charge. 

The guy getting sponsered gets one-to-one guidance and support.  So far so good.

But, what is the guy getting sponsored goes rogue?  What if he fires at another guy in another crew?  What if he disrespects someone from the same or a different family?

Yeah, ok, he'll get shot quick enough - but should the sponsor get the same treatment?  The sponsor publically claims ownership of the guy, and introduces him to his family.  Should the punishment meted out to the guy getting sponsored be visited upon his sponsor too?  Any toughts?

My thoughts would be that obviously this would be a family to family decision.  But if it were up to me, in general, the answer to the sponsor being shot would be no, unless of course he has a history of this which proves he doesn't pay attention to his associate enough. And depending on how drastic the behaviour was.

GodFathers and GodMothers don't shoot their leaders over a family member acting in such a way unless there is, again, repeated history of family members acting in such a way and no noticeable changes made regarding the handling and teaching of our new mafioso.  So, why should a made or above be automatically punished?  Now, if he/she has taken on sponsorship but memberwhored the guy, not taking care to get to know him as much as possible or if it is obvious he spends no time with him - that is a different story.

But even then it would be a question of shooting someone who has obviously til being a sponsor been a good member or would not have reached his rank,  There are other possibilities such as taking away his sponsorship abilities, demoting etc.

I really think it would be need  to be handled on a case to case basis.

Indeed, there are cases where the Associate sounds great when you mail him, he has great plans for his life, and you think you got a good man working for you.

Next thing you know, he takes a pot shot at an IA sponsored gangster. Bang, the Associate goes down. Should you?

I don't think so, you can't know what that Associate is going to do all the time, and you can't know if he doesn't know something. That's the main reason why Associate get shot, because either their Sponsor didn't tell them something, or the Associate doesn't ask any questions about actions that might lead to his death.

I try to be as open as I can to my Associates, I always tell them if you have any doubt, you better come to me first.

This is something that I have been thinking about quite often as I hope one day to become Made within my family and I would like to take on the responsibillity of guiding someone and being their mentor, what happens if this associate does something terrible on my watch so to speak.

At the end of the day no matter how much you look in to their crendentials it could all be just one big smokescreen. We have no real way of knowing what they say is true and just go on gut instinct. Should the person suffer some kind of punishment for their bad judgement? Maybe but I think at most maybe a demotion.

Let me ask you this though if a family head or crew leader brings someone into their HQ and they end up going bad what punishment will they suffer? None and im not saying that they should because of course they shouldn't, but maybe the fact that their reputation will be tarnished by one misbehaving member is enough of a punishment and maybe that should be the case for a Made man/woman?

Depending on what you said i cant answer that question. there are many cases and many ways for this to have happened. and it's not always the sponsor's fault

in my opinion, every leader and every sponsor has his own job to do. and one of them is to enlighten the sponsored on about all the rules, all the consequences of every action he makes.

every action has it's own consequence and every action has a reason behind it.

the family will most certainly investigate why it happened and if the result was lack of leadership from the sponsor then his fate would be the same. why should the family suffer from his actions ?

a study should be made before taking the right decision, and for a godmother or a godfather to make a decision to kill one of their own leaders will not be easy.

Honestly, it depends on the situation. The sponsor may have taught that associate every thing he knows, every secret a mind can contain. Unless you know the associate, you can not really understand his motive as to why he took that pot shot, or why he disrespected someone.

When a gangster disrespects people and/or shoots at someone, is his CL held responsible? No. However, whenever that happens, I am sure the CL loses some respect in the eyes of the community for housing someone like that.

The sponsor should only be taken out of this world if he directly caused his associate to do whatever it was that caused him to be killed.

OddPanda walks off whistling a merry tune.

To be honest, I wouldn't think the Sponsor should get to much punishment if their sponsoree goes rogue. I mean, if that were the case then Niko who doesn't like Jim, could get sponsored by Jim then shoot someone just to get Jim killed.

See where I am going with this? I just think it would cause more chaos.

I understand where people are coming from when they are saying that it is not the sponsors fault if their sponsoree goes rogue. I feel this statement is true to an extent, however in my opinion you should only sponsor someone if you feel you can fully trust them as their actions will reflet on you as a member of the community.

Therefore i feel that whilst death may not exactly be the best punishment, there may be a more appropriate punishment which of course should vary considering individual circumstances. In relation to this topic we have witnessed leaders in the past who have actually been taken out due to rogues coming from their crews. However at the end of the day i can only offer my opinion and it is up to the leader of the individual in question to make the final decision.

This is a debate that is popping up more and more frequently, so it's nice to see people are thinking about this issue and concerned about how some in this community act. 

A sponsor, by virtue of being a sponsor, has been given the privilege because he has some leadership qualities.  At least that's why I would assume a leader would allow a person to be a sponsor within their family.  Not everybody should be sponsors when they reach a certain rank. 

So, as somebody with these leadership qualities, you should be responsible for the actions of those you lead.  But, like I've said before, that doesn't necessarily mean you should die because the person you are sponsoring went completely crazy, or acted stupidly.  But you certainly should take SOME responsibility.  Whether that means you pay a sum of money to compensate those your child (and I call the person being sponsored a child because they often act like children) has harmed.   And maybe there should be harsher penalties as well. 

But my bottom line is that we should take some responsibility for those we sponsor.  We, after all, are charged with the duty to make sure they are taught well, act in the right way, and become respectable members of the community. 

very well put willhayes, 

you are certainly right, the sponsor should definitely be punished but not always by death.

Punishment is important sometimes the only solution. Most people have to learn the hard way. 

The general consensus seems to be for that punishment should not be death...so should they be demoted / should the wronged party be on the receiving end of a large sum of cash from the sponsor?? IRL if a guy from a crew shoots up another crews bar something would happen beyond the shooter getting killed.

(This is a difficult thing to say without going OOC but I'll do my best)

Many people here act like life is not that precious. Almost if you could just get a million chances to just start over. That's why we have so many people doing such stupid things. It's like we can produce children like baking cakes so you know somebody can "replace you" with just the loss of money and some rank.

That's why when somebody just takes a pot shot, the death of the shooter is punishment enough.