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I'd hate to have you on a jury, you assume way too much.

I grew up in the adjacent town to where John Gotti Jr lives (Babylon), my childhood friends were the suns and daughters of associates and solders. I was surrounded by this since I was a kid, most of what you assume isn't true - its all about the fear that it could occur. A loanshark isn't dumb, he knows that if he breaks someones thumbs to collect a debt then the heat will be on him - which destroys his business. They are business men, they worry about things that normal businesses worry about like marketing, public perception, etc etc etc. Its bad business to create an upset customer, the customer's actions can put the loanshark out of business for good. Fear is a loansharks #1 collection tool, violence is very very very rarely used.

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Read the biography of Stuey Ungar by Peter Alson and Nolan Dalla. Ungar's father was a bookie, and according to the book never used violent collection means. The best way to get a debt paid was to threaten to cut off the action of the person who owed it - to a degenerate, this is worse than violence.

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oddly I used to live across the street from the Sly Foxx in NY, Unger's father's bar. 9th street and 2nd avenue. Small world eh? that place was a dive.