Transcript Integrity and Irrational Behavior in Gangs

Antony W. Dnes
Integrity and Irrational Behavior in Gangs,
Aristocracies, Cliques and other Sub Groups
Rational Basis for Behaviour of Street
Gangs?
•Gang - special case of a subgroup in society
• Others: aristocratic elites, organized crime, military groups, and
even academic groupings and cliques
• Changing mores in late twentieth and early twenty-first century
always driven by socio-economic factors (Norbert Elias)
• Coarsening of manners, associated with the emergence of
subgroups, particularly street gangs of young bullies (‘Chavs’)
• Analysis differs from work on IO of drugs gangs by Levitt &
Venkatesh (2000).
Indirect Benefits from Irrational
Behaviour – Developing Skills
• Irrational behaviour = investment in gang-related skills?
• Gang members (i) share in the proceeds of general gang
activity, (ii) benefit from reputation effect with outsiders.
•‘We knew that if we approached people in the street they
would be scared of us. …It was a laugh to watch them cross
the street or run away as we approached (Gilbert 2006, 89).’
• Examples: beat up a victim after the robbery; provoking fight
in heartland of another gang; binge drinking to near death.
• Main characteristic is recklessness.
Just How Irrational?
• ‘We all piled into the pub … Someone was stabbed, someone
was thrown in front of a moving car, … one got his lung
punctured … another fractured his skull (Gilbert 2006).
•Is such behaviour responsive to deterrence mechanisms?
•Klein (1995): ‘Street gangs are an amalgam of racism,
…poverty, of minority and youth culture, of fatalism in the
face of rampant deprivation …’
• Levitt &Venkatesh (2000): ‘Difficult … to reconcile the
behavior of gang members with an economic model without
assuming nonstandard preferences or…nonpecuniary benefits’
Rational Basis for Gang Behaviour.
Similar to Dueling?
•Gangs are one example of a social subgroup
•c.f. Aristocratic dueling (Allen and Reed, 2006) - dueling
evolved to provide screening device enabling monarch to find
individuals possessed of high integrity.
•Dueling highly irrational: more important to give and take
challenge; developed to avoid fatality.
•Remarkable similarity between gang member’s resistance to
attacks on reputation and that of earlier aristocrats.
•Difference may be gang members invest in observable human
capital – screening probably not relevant.
Comparing Gangs and Aristocracies:
a Matter of Life & Death
“Richard was the gang leader, and he would hype us up. His
common gambits were: ‘That guy was looking at me,’… ‘He
was laughing at me.’ The whole lot of us would pile into him
(Gilbert, 2006, 88).”
“Duels were fought over an insult, a slap to the face, a slur on
reputation, ‘coolness of manner,’ or, most serious of all, an
accusation of lying.”
(Billacois, 1990, 9, cited by Allen and Reed, 2006, 83).
Integrity in Gangs
•Antisocial behaviour that acts as signal of belonging to a
gang revolves around recklessness: binge drinking, fighting,
taking on authority
•Deschenes and Esbensen (1997): gang members more
impulsive, engage in more reckless behavior, and committed
to gang peers, but not to school, parents, or non-gang youth.
•Indirectly of value to gang: can rely on individual.
•C.f. Military initiation (unofficial)? Academic publishing?
•Recklessness a form of integrity as viewed by gang?
Investments in Human Capital
in Gangs
• N individuals each born with a different level of subgroup
human capital, si0 , ranked from highest to lowest,
i.e. s10 > s2 >…> sN+10 > sN0.
• Individual’s post-investment level of subgroup human capital
is si ≥ si0.
• Gang member if at least sR (set by leader).
• Leader has highest human capital, s10
• Total gain to gang, depends on membership size, n(sR),
Y = y[n(sR)] ≡ nG
Benefits of Joining Gang
• Personal prestige, Pi, attached to being a gang member.
• Unequal share in gang proceeds, weighted by λi
• Member earns:
Ei = (1+ λi) G+ Pi where ∑λi=0
• So: (i) leader chooses sR, which, together with the cost of
investment, determines the size of the gang; (ii) individuals
decide their investments, sR - s*, in subgroup human capital.
Joining the Gang
• Individual born with s* ≥ sR, there is no need for investment
• If individual born with s*< sR, then investment occurs if the
net gains from investment are positive.
• The equilibrium cut-off level of human capital, s*, for worth
while investment, is determined by the marginal individual:
(1+λ*) G+P* - C[sR- s*( sR)] = 0
(right hand part, C[.], shows costs)
Mind the Gap
Ex post distribution of human capital has a gap in it:
sN
s*
Region of no Investment sR
s1
There is a large gap between the characteristics of gang
members and the rest of society.
Membership depends on the incentives for investment ex
ante, and the feasibility of investment, for the individuals
initially characterized by s*< sR.
An Economist Writes …
• Street-gang traits, such as binge drinking and antagonism of
legitimate authority can be understood in terms of showing off the
possession of relevant subgroup human capital.
•The group that starts with lower endowed gang-relevant human
capital, ‘integrity’ in the terms of this paper, should be susceptible
to policies aimed at deterring the acquisition of additional capital
(e.g. zero-tolerance policies; ‘super nanny’).
• All gang members deterred if the gains from belonging to the
gang are reduced by increases in the severity of punishment and
the probability of applying the punishment, following the usual
theory of the economics of crime