in chapter 3 of “FREAKONOMICS: Why Do Drug Dealers Live with Their Moms?” our author takes a look into the reason why so many drug dealers still live at home with their moms. Until provide a more in depth look into the gang lifestyle, our author recalls the experience of Sudhir Venkatesh with the black disciples. Venkatesh was born in India born, upstate New York native who held a degree in mathematics as well as a Ph.D. in in sociology. His first assignment nearly leads to his death, as his graduate advisor sent him out into Chicago poorest black neighborhoods. During his search for participants to help him complete a survey, he stumbled upon a Black Gangster Disciple Nation members who were in the midst of a turf war. Sudhir a random man …show more content…
had stumbled up a group of hostile, armed gang members in the midst of a gang war consequently, they wanted an explanation. Venkatesh fears for his life explained to the gang’s leader that the was only interested in learning about the gang, and publicizing his findings, with the gang’s permission of course. Eventually J.T. and Sudhir realized they both had a lot in common- they were both college graduates who felt so out of place in the real-life work world they both choose different paths. J.T.
the gang’s leader, eventually opened up to Sudhir then promised him unrestricted access to the gang’s operations as long as J.T. retained veto power over any and all information released to the public. After practically moving into the housing projects, years of squatting from random house to random house trying to learn the lifestyle of these underprivileged black Americans, he had seemingly assimilated himself into the gang lifestyle. His biggest break though, was when a member of the gang named Booty, who was being accused of the gang of bringing upon a federal indictment on the gang, gave him the gangs black book. This black book contained a complete record of four years’ worth of financial records, ranging from sales, wages, dues and death benefits paid out to the families of murdered members. For the first time, priceless financial data had fallen into an economist …show more content…
hands. This black book essentially answered our authors question why do so many drug dealers live with their moms.
The answer is that most drug dealers make less than minimum wage, just about $3:30 an hour according to Venkatesh. They simply can’t afford to move out on their own unless they are at the top of the gang’s hierarchy. It’s not that the gangs don’t have the money to pay their members moreover, it is that just like an American business, particularly McDonalds. The leader of the gangs makes most of the earnings, will leave the others to struggle by Just like a capitalist enterprise CEO. What we learned was that if “we were to hold a McDonald’s organizational chart and a black disciple chart side by side, you could hardly tell the difference.” (Pg. 87) In other words a gang essentially works like a standard capitalist enterprise, where you need to be at the top of the chain to make good money. For example, the top 120 men in the Black Disciples gang represented just 2.2 percent of gang membership, but took home well over 50% of the earnings. Just like the top executives in McDonalds, the gang’s leaders made nearly as much as he paid his entire gang in wages every
month. Venkatesh continues to look into the reason why so many foot soldiers are willing to put their lives on the line just to make the top bosses money? The answer is relatively simple, says our author. They all want to succeed in an extremely competitive field in which, if you reach the top, you are compensated a fortune. For some kid growing up in the South side of Chicago in the projects, selling crack therefore, joining a gang seems like an attraction or a dream job. Being the boss of a gang was essentially the best job they would ever have access to due to the circumstances they have been oppressed to for decades.
As time went by, J.T. and Venkatesh met less and less and in the year 1998, most of the Robert Taylor buildings would be demolished. As their encounters were coming to an end, J.T. offers Venkatesh names of gang members in Newark and in New York, to enable Venkatesh to pursue his research elsewhere since his dissertation had long ago been finished which was written on the ways that people living in poverty made a living to get them by day-to-day.
Gang Leader for a Day: A Rouge Sociologist Takes to the Streets by Sudhir Venkatesh is the ideologies rooted in the African American community. The ideal facts cannot be denied here. The idea of being black and poor is not a simple answer of, very bad, somewhat bad, neither, somewhat good or very good. Being black and poor is a lifestyle. Being black and poor is a community. This book will give you understanding how structural racism among blacks is installed throughout history. The system is created to make sure the subject matter, blacks, in this case are subjected to fail. The crack epidemic in a Chicago neighborhood was only the beginning.
The Cocaine Kids and Dorm Room Dealers are two very different, but yet similar books. Cocaine Kids are about a group of kids, primarily of Hispanic race, with one kid of the Black race. The kids were raised in the inner city of New York. Dorm Room Dealers are about White, middle to upper-middle class college students, who was selling drugs for their status. The purpose of this paper is to prove that there are racial disparities among drug users. There will be examples from the texts that show the different takes on the drug markets and how race plays a factor. There also will be how these experiences shape the kids drug dealing and using. The paper will conclude how all the kids either remained in the drug career or left the drug career.
This book review covers Policing Gangs in America by Charles Katz and Vincent Webb. Charles Katz has a Ph.D. in Criminal Justice, while Vincent Webb has a Ph.D. in Sociology, making both qualified to conduct and discuss research on gangs. Research for Policing Gangs in America was gathered in four cities across the American Southwest; Inglewood, California, Albuquerque, New Mexico, Las Vegas, Nevada, and Phoenix, Arizona. This review will summarize and discuss the main points of each chapter, then cover the relationship between the literature and class discussions in Introduction to Policing and finally it will note the strengths and weaknesses of book.
Over the past 60 years there has been a recent phenomenon in the development and rise of gangs and gang violence. This is exceptionally apparent in South Central Los Angeles, where the Bloods and the Crips have taken control of the social structure and created a new type of counter culture. Poverty in this area is an enormous problem caused by a sheer lack of jobs; but just because there is a lack of jobs doesn’t mean that there will be a lack of bills to pay, so sometimes selling drugs in order to keep a roof over your head seems like the most logical option. Crime often times flourishes in these regions because the inconvenient truth is; crime pays. Senator Tom Hayden stated “It’s been defined as a crime problem and a gang problem
Gang Leader for a Day written by Sudhir Venkatesh consisted of Sudhir himself studying, observing and partaking in a study for his dissertation on the South Side of Chicago with underprivileged African Americans who are gang affiliated. The methodological and ethical issues that were found in his book reflect potential strengths and weaknesses of his qualitative research. Venkatesh brought to light the dangers and awareness of being associated with the Black Kings gang, there were situations that were new to him that he had to adjust himself to and be cautious of for the future. Although there were a few ethical issues presented in his book, there was a greater lesson at large taken from his results.
Throughout There Are No Children Here, a continuous, powerful tension always lurks in the background. The gangs that are rampant in the housing projects of Chicago cause this tension. In the Henry Horner Homes, according to Kotlowitz, one person is beaten, shot, or stabbed due to gangs every three days. In one week during the author's study of the projects, police confiscated 22 guns and 330 grams of cocaine in Horner alone (Kotlowitz 32).
CNN presents the documentary, Homicide in Hollenbeck, spotlighting gang activity in the Los Angeles neighborhood of Hollenbeck. This documentary explores the subculture of gangs existing within Hollenbeck from a several perspectives. The people documented include a mother who lost both of her sons to gang violence, a priest that has tried to help rehabilitate gang members, a police officer that has worked in Hollenbeck for five years in the gang unit, and a current gang member. For a conclusion, Homicide in Hollenbeck focuses on a juvenile exposed to gang life on the cusp of decided where they want their life to lead; gangs or freedom. Problems attributed to the high rate of gang activity and number of gangs in Hollenbeck are the high poverty rate, low employment rate, and broken families that make up the majority of Hollenbeck. The crime most discussed, as per the title of the documentary, is homicide The number of gang related homicides has risen even though the criminal behavior of gangs has ultimately decreased in the neighborhood. In order to fight the overwhelming gang presence, the police believe in increasing the amount of gun power on the streets and number of jailed gang members. The priest who runs Homeboy Industries stated that he feels most gang members are just young men who can’t get out of the gang life. With more funds and opportunities, he thinks the problem could be decreased. In the end, the documentary mentions that the FBI has formed a gang center where local law enforcement agencies can share information to gain more knowledge and to better fight the presence of gangs.
In the 1970’s Patricia Adler and her husband infiltrated a large drug smuggling and dealing ring located in Southwest County of southern California with the intent of learning more about the covert group. In Adler’s book Wheeling and Dealing: an Ethnography of an Upper-Level Drug Dealing and Smuggling Community, she delves into the multifaceted lifestyle and activities of those in the Southwest County drug world. In this paper, I will look into the factors that initiated their entry into the drug world, their activates that facilitated their smuggling and dealing of drugs, and their exit from the drug world, while applying multiple theories to explain their illegal behavior.
As more and more immigrants began to spread throughout the US, more and more gangs of people began to emerge. Gangs were usually made up of people of a common ethnicity, whether it be Irish, Italian, or Hispanic. These gangs were usually victims of anti-immigrant policies and looked for strength in numbers. As gangs became more and more sophisticated they realized they could make profits from the power they were accumulating. One of the most recognizable examples is the bootlegging of alcohol during the Prohibition. When federal officials attempted to enforce legislation such as the Volstead Act, there was a surge of illegal sales and profits. In 1927, Al Capone and his gang racked up over $60 million from bootlegged alcohol. With all of this money came tons of violence, people were getting murdered in broad daylight just so others could have a sum of all of this wealth. Soon Mob families would own clubs or casinos to increase their wealth. The attendees weren’t only made up of rich mob bosses, the alcohol, dancing, and gambling attracted many ordinary
Sudhir Venkatesh’s ethnography Gang Leader for a Day is a summary of his research through the University of Chicago in the 1990s. Venkatesh chose to do research on poor African-Americans in Chicago, and their experiences in public housing developments. He concentrated his study on the Robert Taylor Housing to better understand how residents lived and differentiated from those in other parts of the city. Venkatesh’s target population was those living in harsh living conditions, primarily black and poor. Throughout this paper, I will be addressing Venkatesh’s research and its limitations. I will also share my opinion on Venkatesh’s analysis and understanding of his findings about the residents, and how his experiences mesh with my own. In
The story, Gang Leader for a Day by Sudhir Venkatesh, is a ethnographic study of a Black King Gang in the Robert Taylor community. Venkatesh accidentally stumbles upon the gang lead by J.T. and decided to study them. Throughout his journey he learns from the violence and illegal activity he witnesses that “in the projects it’s more important that you take care of the problem first. Then you worry about how you took care of it”’ (Venkatesh. 2008:164). He witnesses beatings, selling of illegal drugs, and exploitation of residents; but he also gained a lot of knowledge about the community. He works with J.T. and Ms. Bailey, the community leader, closely through his study. J.T. has taken a sociology class and he allows Venkatesh to shadow the gang
In the story of how “A Rouge Sociologist Takes to the Streets”, Sudhir Venkatesh finds himself in the projects of Chicago documenting his first hand experiences of his journey on how he is introduced to the black culture. Sudhir, a first year college student in the University of Chicago, decides to participate in a research project regarding “how young blacks were affected by specific neighborhood factors”, when he realizes how ineffective these questionnaires are, he decides to proceed in unconventional ways to retrieve his answers. Sudhir’s accumulated a growing fascination with the housing projects in Chicago the longer he spent in the community. Before long Sudhir had befriended a gang leader, by the name of J.T., who had given him a powerful
Sociology student Sudhir Venkatesh sets out on a journey within the Chicago housing projects with a quest of finding out how it feels to be black and poor. Sudhir was an Indian native from a middle class Californian family and he was unfamiliar with the black culture within Chicago. In his book Gang Leader for a Day, he tells of his sociology research within one of the roughest housing projects in Chicago. Sudhir starts his research by talking to a few elderly gentlemen he played chess with at the park. His conversation with them led him to the Robert Taylor Housing Projects which was described as one of the worst Ghettos in America. His research began the first day he arrived with his clipboard of questionnaires ready to ask the question, “How does it feel to be black and poor?” His intent was to interview a few families within the projects and then go home but something unexpected happened. He ended up spending much longer gaining an insight of the lives of poor blacks, gangs, and drug dealers.
Many stereotypes of gangs have been fabricated. The problem is that a majority of gang members do not fit these stereotypes, which, in turn, makes it hard for the to be caught (Klein). Traditionally they organize their group around a specific neighborhood, school or housing projec...