Customer Reviews

Codes of the Underworld: How Criminals Communicate

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For those looking for a more academic take on signaling (particularly from a sociological point of view), Gambetta's Codes of the Underworld is a great find. Gambetta uses the extreme case of cooperation amongst criminals to tease out more general dynamics of trust, signaling, and communication. The Mafia can be considered a "hard-case" for theories of signaling trust; given the extreme incentives for criminals to lie and the lack of credibility they wield given the very fact that they are criminals, how is it that criminals manage to coordinate their actions and trust each other at all? By understanding how trust works in this harsh environment we learn something about how to signal trustworthiness in broader, less restrictive environments. As Gambetta notes, "Studying criminal communication problems, precisely because they are the magnified extreme versions of problems that we normally solve by means of institutions, can teach us something about how we might communicate, or even should communicate, when we find ourselves in difficult situations, when, say, we desperately want to be believed or keep our messages secret." The book is a great example of studying deviant cases or outliers, particularly when the area of study is not well worn. This is a valuable general methodological lesson. We are typically taught to avoid outliers as they skew analysis. However, they can be of great value in at least two circumstances: 1) Generating hypotheses in areas that have not been well studied and 2) Testing hypotheses in small-N research designs, where hard cases can establish potential effect and generalizability and easy cases suggest minimal plausibility.

Gambetta takes a number of criminal actions and views them through the lens of signaling. This allows readers to see actions, in many cases, in completely new ways, highlighting the instrumental causes of behavior. For example, Gambetta looks at how criminals solve the problem of identifying other criminals by selectively frequenting environments where non-criminals are not likely to go. Since criminals cannot advertise their criminality, they face a coordination problem. Frequenting these locations acts as a screening mechanism since only those that are criminals are likely willing to pay the costs to frequent these locations. (This ignores the issue of undercover law enforcement, but Gambetta deals with that as well). Gambetta also makes the reader look at prison in a new light. Criminals derive a number of advantages from serving time in prison, not the least of which is providing them with a signaling mechanism for communicating their credibility to other criminals (as prison time can be verified by third parties). Additionally, many criminal organizations will require that new members have already served time before they are allowed to join. Moreover, Gambetta explores how incompetence can work to a criminal's advantage, since it can signal loyalty to a boss who provides the criminals only real means of income.

Gambetta also looks at the conspicuous use of violence within prisons. This isn't a new topic, as any law enforcement drama will undoubtedly portray the dilemma of a new inmate who must establish their reputation for toughness and resolve or else suffer constant assaults by other inmates. However, Gambetta makes it interesting by embedding the act in a signaling framework. First, Gambetta's hypothesis regarding the importance of non-material interests is borne out by various studies. Among others, he cites one study of prison conflict that found that "[n]on-material interests (self-respect, honour, fairness, loyalty, personal safety and privacy) were important in every incident." While only some violent conflicts occur for the immediate purpose of getting or keeping resources, all of them have to do with establishing one's reputation or correcting wrong beliefs about it. Even "a conflict that began over the disputed ownership of some item could quickly be interpreted by both parties as a test of who could exploit whom." Second, Gambetta hypothesizes that we should expect to see more fights when prisoners do not have enough of a violence track record when they first arrive in prison. One observable implication of this is higher rates of prison violence among female prisoners and younger prisoners. In fact, the empirical record bears this out quite nicely. Rates of violence are inversely related to age, providing " a plausible social rather than biological explanation" for youth violence. Additionally, Gambetta finds that, although less violent in the outside world, "women become at least as violent and often more prone to violence than men". Interesting, women are less often convicted of violent offenses, suggesting that the results are not simply the result of selection effects.

Overall, Gambetta's book is a unique and thought-provoking work. For those with a strong interest in communication and signaling, it is a must read.

Fascinating from start to finish. You can think of many reasons offhand why such a book would be endlessly captivating, but Gambetta will continually surprise you with the twists and turns in his subject.

Start with the obvious question: you're a criminal, and you want to communicate with your fellow-bad guys. How do you do it? That's intriguing on its own. If you know the other bad guy, you can vouch for him (or think you can -- see "Brasco, Donnie"). If you don't know him, you need to much more carefully apply the vetting that we use in the legit world: find someone you know who knows him, ask around about him, and so forth.

Obviously your big concern as an underworld fellow is the police. They're constantly trying to listen in on your communications, get fellow bad guys to turn state's evidence, and plant undercover cops in your midst.

When your organization reaches a certain level of success and infamy -- think of the Mafia here -- you now have a brand to protect. Rival organizations start claiming your name to strike fear into their enemies' hearts. To avoid brand dilution, you need to make sure that only those people who are actually in the Mafia say they're in the Mafia. Trademark law isn't going to protect you here, so you need to enforce your own brand.

And how do your establish your bona fides as a bad guy? One intensely fascinating thread in Codes to the Underworld has to do with commitment strategies: imposing some heavy cost on yourself -- some cost that absolutely no one outside the Mafia (or whichever group) would ever think of faking. Henry Farrell, over at Crooked Timber, excerpts one amazing bit on this score:

Erefaan's face is covered in tattoos. "Spit on my grave" is tattooed across his forehead; "I hate you, Mum" etched on his left cheek. The tattoos are an expression of loyalty. The men cut the emblems of their allegiance into their skin. The Number [the name of the hierarchical system in Pollsmoor prison] demands not only that you pledge your oath verbally, but that you are marked, indelibly, for life. Facial tattoos are the ultimate abandonment of all hope for a life outside.

Gambetta has spent decades studying the Italian mafia. He's a brilliant economic naturalist, with story upon story from the world out there. He's a gripping writer, to boot. Codes of the Underworld is one of the few works of economics that you'll be unable to put down. This may be because it's not recognizable, at first glance, as a work of economics. But its economic cred is pristine; it's filled with references to the great Thomas Schelling. Highly recommended, both for those who love economics and those who love The Godfather.

(I'd be remiss here if I didn't mention, by the way, Schelling's Micromotives and Macrobehavior. It's an boundlessly interesting piece of work.)

To quote Tyler Cowen's review, which inspired me to purchase this book, "Gambetta's task is well summarized by a single sentence: 'Given these propensities, one wonders how criminals ever manage to do anything together.'"

Gambetta analyzes how criminals are able to coordinate, advertise, etc. in a highly risky environment. It's an academic work, but well suited for the layperson. Full of interesting anecdotes and theories. Highly recommended.

got the book in the library, expected more from it.

gets boring pretty quick.

non-fiction books by Marc MacYoung and Peyton Quinn are much more relevant, or try fiction by Andrew Vachss

there's a book called "The Crime That Pays:
Drug Trafficking and Organized Crime in Canada" based on case studies and the actual accounts by criminals, way better book

If you pay even modest attention to your environment, or even watch television, or live in even a moderately large city you won't find anything new in this book. You'd have to live a really sheltered life not to be aware of the contents of this book.

This academic treatise on how criminals communicate reads like a journal article that ran too long for acceptance as such, dry and boring. Overall there's nothing really interesting here, since the methods are mostly common sense and could easily be picked up by reading true crime books. Both Gambetta and the previous reviewer cite "Donnie Brasco," which is shorter, better written, and far more interesting than this overpriced sleeping pill. I can only hope no taxpayer-funded grant money went into writing this.