In ultra-Orthodox Jewish communities across New York state, women wear long skirts and long-sleeved, high-necked blouses on the street; men wear suits and white collar shirts, buttoned to the neck; and girls are told the precise color and thickness of the stockings they can wear to school.

And these aren’t just recommendations – community modesty codes are strictly enforced. Not just by social custom, but by a self-appointed, shadowy group of men who police a predominantly Hasidic neighborhood in North Brooklyn, according to a report in the New York Times.

‘They operate like the Mafia,