Venkatesh's Gang Leader For A Day

In Venkatesh’s Gang Leader for a Day, he violated many ethical codes when conducting his research in the Robert Taylor Homes. The ASA “Code of Ethics” states that there are four rules “1. To protect research subjects, 2. To maintain honesty and openness, 3. To achieve valid results, 4. To encourage appropriate application”(47 Chambliss & Schutt). Given these four guidelines we can see that Venkatesh’s work is in violation. A few examples are his lack of informed consent, an occurrence of deception that helped him receive his data, as well as the lack of confidentiality that the experiment had.
The first example is the idea of rule two with informed consent. When Venkatesh first starts collecting his data, he has the opportunity to ask J.T. and the gang his first questions. Venkatesh states “I explained the project as best as I could. It was being overseen by a national poverty expert”(15 Venkatesh). Here is proof that the boys originally understand what kind of data collection is happening, but Venkatesh fails to receive any sort of informed consent from any of the men. J.T. responds to the question, but there is never the required step of acknowledging the consent. Later the issue is readdressed when Venkatesh is quoted “I realized I had

never formally asked J.T. about gaining access to his life and work. Now it seemed I might be getting shut out just as things were heating up”(35 Venkatesh). This shows the moment where Venkatesh realizes that he made an error on the ethics of his data collection. He then goes on to assure J.T. that the paper he is creating and collecting for will be solely about J.T. which then is in violation of avoiding deception.
This idea of avoiding deception is yet another idea of where Venkatesh’s ethics stray from the code of the ASA. The whole study Venkatesh leads J.T. to believe that he is writing a dissertation and a paper on the life of J.T. With this he doesn’t ever correct J.T. when he is speaking of the paper revolving around him. The same deception is also present when Venkatesh is involved with the work of Ms. Bailey. While quoted saying “Like J.T. Ms. Bailey seemed to enjoy the fact that I was interested in her. Perhaps she, too, though I was going to be her personal biographer”(165 Venkatesh). The quote is an example of the mindset Venkatesh had while participating around these people. They believed he was there for a different reason than his honest motive.
A third and last example of where Venkatesh violated the ASA Code of Ethics is the lack of confidentiality that was present in the data. While keeping notes and his data collection, Venkatesh did not change any of the facts, he kept activities and names together, he kept drug information and the actions he’d witnessed exactly as he witnessed them. This came into trouble when Venkatesh became aware of his legal obligation to the law. As seen in the conversation between him and Ms. Bailey that carried out with “my legal obligation to share notes with the police. ‘You mean you didn’t know this all along?’ Ms. Bailey said. ‘Even I knew that you have to tell the police what you’re doing’”(187 Venkatesh) Venkatesh highlights the ideas previously stated. This can represent the difference in approach between Ms. Bailey and Venkatesh. With all their information in his notes Venkatesh would be handing over illegal information that would result in J.T. and the members of the Robert Taylor Homes arrested. This lack of confidentiality puts Venkatesh and all of his informants at risk within the law.
I don’t believe that Venkatesh would of achieved this level of knowledge and success in his study through a different form of research. He carried out a snowball style of research with interviewing and talking to people in the Robert Taylor homes by meeting people in different social circles through others in the homes. If he had disclosed his true study and goals, these inner circle people would not have talked to him or even shown Venkatesh the things they did. He was allowed to witness and be a part of many of these illegal activities due to the fact that the people conducting them simply were unaware that he was recording them and studying their activity in these illegal acts.
If Venkatesh had told everyone his true goals and study his most reliable study sample would of been to use a cluster sample with different people throughout the homes. Through this form of study, there is no way he would've received the in depth data and information that Venkatesh was able to achieve, also he most likely would have needed to learn through the police’s view of the project. With the violations, he had gained access to background research through the snowball effect. With the interactions he was granted through this effect, Venkatesh achieved access to the hidden population of this study. Through a normal cluster study this hidden population would not only be unaccessible, but also the data that he would be receiving would be bias and often times not the full data. This idea is presented in the book “One reason journalists often publish thin stories about the projects is that they typically rely on the police for information, and this reliance makes the tenants turn their backs”(242 Venkatesh). If Venkatesh were to carry out a probability cluster sample and ask the blatant and harsh questions he started with, many people would not respond with correct and valid statements and many times the illegal activity that occurred would have been hidden and unreported.
Along with the other form of questioning, Venkatesh stated that he most likely would of seen the projects through the views of the police.

With this outside view, it is likely that he would have automatically viewed them in a negative light, along with the fact that the people he was interviewing would have reacted negatively towards him. Venkatesh says “Most tenants probably would have stopped speaking with me if they thought I was even remotely tied to the police”(242 Venkatesh). This shows that if Venkatesh would have used access through the police, the people he met and relied on throughout the study most likely wouldn't of let him be present or participate in any of the activities he was able to witness through his

study.
There are benefits that we developed from Venkatesh, many are through research modes and different issues that could occur through the process of data collection. The findings that resulted from Venkatesh’s study showed how poverty and crime is present in the homes and poverty stricken areas. Researchers learned that within poverty were different branches of power and different economic systems that were run within the Robert Taylor homes. Through the study observers can clearly see the intricate systems held within the homes. There are power roles and different statuses held in order for the buildings to run in some sort of order. We can see there is consequently an overarching power figure, Mrs Bailey, who runs the buildings and is connected to their inner economies. Then there are the workers and leaders who run those economies, such as J.T. with the drug business that’s run through the building. These inner poverty circles would not have been known if not for Venkatesh’s research.
In conclusion, with Gang Leader for a Day, Venkatesh broke many ethical codes while collecting information. With these, his research and data, then becomes invalid due to the unethical collection mode and overall results. There are many ways of collecting data and although some of these different modes make seeing the hidden populations and true happenings difficult, the ASA Code of Ethics is there to protect not only those being observed in these studies, but also the researcher. With the many things learned from Venkatesh, these ideas and knowledge will help mold other programs and studies to come.