In fact, if you look up the word tenderloin in many dictionaries, you’ll find that one slang meaning is actually an inner-city “vice” district controlled by corrupt police officers. As large cities formed in the United States in the nineteenth century, they typically developed certain neighborhoods in which activities that weren’t tolerated elsewhere—prostitution, gambling, selling and consuming criminalized drugs, and sexually explicit entertainment—were effectively permitted. Police often turned a blind eye to this illicit activity, often because the cops on the beat, and sometimes their
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