Antony W. Dnes

1
Antony W. Dnes
Integrity and Irrational Behavior in Gangs,
Aristocracies, Cliques and other Sub Groups
2
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).

3
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.

4
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 ornonpecuniary benefits

5
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 members
  resistance to attacks on reputation and that of
  earlier aristocrats.
• Difference may be gang members invest in
  observable human capital screening probably not
  relevant.

6
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).
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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?

8
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 gt s2 gtgt sN10 gt sN0.
• Individuals 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 yn(sR) nG

9
Benefits of Joining Gang

• Personal prestige, Pi, attached to being a gang
  member.
• Unequal share in gang proceeds, weighted by ?i
• Member earns
• Ei (1 ?i) G Pi where ??i0
• 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.

10
Joining the Gang

• Individual born with s sR, there is no need
  for investment
• If individual born with slt 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?) GP - CsR- s( sR)
  0
• (right hand part, C., shows costs)

11
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 slt sR.
12
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