Sudhir Venkatesh's extraordinary eyewitness account of life with a Chicago crack gang

In 1989, a University of Chicago graduate student named Sudhir Venkatesh decided to leave his cocoon-like campus, and find out what life was like in his city’s notorious public housing projects. So he wandered into the decrepit Lake Park projects of Chicago’s Oakland neighborhood, introduced himself to a group of teenagers shooting dice, whipped out a clipboard, and asked them this question: “How does it feel to be black and poor? Very bad, somewhat bad, neither bad nor good, somewhat good, very good?”

“You got to be f-cking kidding me,” the ringleader said. And the whole dumbstruck group convulsed with laughter.

Hearing how ridiculous his own question sounded, Venkatesh realized then and there that he was wasting his time. The residents of this squalid building were living lives completely alien to his middle-class upbringing. He wasn’t going to get inside their heads with patronizing multiple-choice questions.

But foolish as he felt, Venkatesh caught a break that day, one that eventually set him on a path to a rock-star reputation within sociology, and a professorship in the Ivy Leagues.

The toughs Venkatesh stumbled on were low-level foot soldiers with the Black Kings, an enormous regional outfit whose Lake Park operations were controlled by a formidable gangland general named “J.T.” Against all odds, Venkatesh struck up an instant bond with the man. Unlike just about everyone else who lived at Lake Park, J.T. had been to college, and had even studied sociology in preparation for a short-lived career in the legitimate business world.

A narcissist, J.T. imagined his life to be worthy of biography, and invited Venkatesh into his inner circle as a sort of court scribe. For the next seven years, Venkatesh would become eyewitness to the inner workings of gang life. His remarkable account of those years — contained in a newly released book, Gang Leader for a Day: A rogue sociologist takes to the streets — is required reading for anyone who wants to understand why gangs continue to thrive among the West’s underclass.

The first thing one notices about the world Venkatesh describes is this: There are no fathers. Everyone at Lake Park — even J.T., who commands 200 gangsters and, in a good year, makes six figures from crack-dealing — lives with their momma. The young men don’t dream of settling down with a family. Rather, they seek to emulate the polygamous J.T., who uses his drug proceeds to lodge various girlfriends in separate apartments. With no father figures to guide them, these men internalize the juvenile conception of manhood peddled by rap videos, and fritter away their adolescent years pursuing it through streetcorner posturing and brawling.

The nature of the local economy is the second thing that stands out: Except for the corner stores (which are run by Arabs), there is little legitimate free-market activity. Virtually all of the money coming in to Lake Park comes from two sources: government welfare and drugs. The few people who apply actual marketable job skills within the community — such as the mechanic “C-Note,” who gets his name because he has “a hundred ways to make a hundred dollars” — are so rare as to be minor celebrities.

As a result, criminality is normalized: The idea of studying hard, going to college and getting a respectable job — the formula for success applied by waves of European and Asian immigrants to North American since the late 19th century — is dismissed as a white man’s fantasy.

Gang life is at the center of all these pathologies. But as Venkatesh explains, the local residents’ attitude toward the Black Kings is actually quite conflicted. Because violence attracts police, and police scare away customers, J.T. has an economic interest in keeping life in the projects peaceful. For a small cut of the action, his henchmen provide a security detail for the local crack dens, and protection for prostitutes. They also drive sick residents to the hospital, organize basketball games, and even stage get-out-the-vote drives on behalf of the local black political machine. There is plenty of violence in Gang leader for a day. But it is not random. Like all petty tyrants, J.T. understands that his legitimacy rests on providing some semblance of order.

The portrait that emerges from this book therefore complicates the simple black-and-white way we normally think of the gang problem. Yes, gangs act as a criminal evil that act in opposition to the law-and-order culture that pervades mainstream society. But in very poor areas that are bereft of the basic sociological building blocks of middle-class society — stable families, legitimate employment, job skills, respect for education — an established gang can, in some instances, take over some of the functions normally served by police, employers, and even social workers.

At the same time, Gang leader for a day implicitly suggests a strategy for tackling this underlying subculture: overhauling the drug laws and welfare programs that serve as its two-pronged economic power source.

As Canadian gang expert Michael C. Chettleburgh wrote in a June, 2007 National Post op-ed, our criminal prohibition of recreational drugs permits gangs to capture the massive economic premium associated with illegal enterprise. By treating drug use as what it truly is — a health problem — instead of a criminal-justice problem, we would force gangs to fall back onto far less lucrative activities, such as prostitution and loan-sharking.

At the same time, implementing a draconian welfare reform of the type the United States enacted under Bill Clinton could serve to eliminate the state’s role in subsidizing a ghetto culture in which permanent unemployment is seen as a viable lifestyle choice.

Ultimately, all social reform begins with responsible people making individual decisions: No government policy can force people, of whatever skin colour, to live their lives in a responsible way. But we can do a better job at setting up the right incentives, so that teenagers and young adults find themselves more inspired by Venkatesh than the gang leader he’s written about.

I occasionally deal with these people. They come into our store. A few of them have stolen from us, most of them are happy to buy from us; getting both what they need and some how-to advice in the process.

Any information or insights on gangs is always welcome.

I pray for all these young kids I see, knowing they like me, and knowing they know I like them. I believe we're all God's children, only because it's true.

Fear is a trap regardless of the colors of mankind. We have to see beyond the colors to escape the trap.

Gangs, drugs & prostitution are on parade daily where I conduct business. Hopelessness is simply a lack of having it. You can't live in this world without hope.

...an established gang can, in some instances, take over some of the functions normally served by police, employers, and even social workers.

Duh.

Dogs pack and so do humans. What does the esteemed researcher think tribal allegiance in the most primitive locations of the world provides?

Thanks for trying to be a positive presence in some of those dark lives.

I have often thought that the leaders of these gangs are like CEO’s of companies. I can’t help but think if the circumstances were different these gang leaders could have been successful, legitimate business men....just a thought

“.....and even stage get-out-the-vote drives on behalf of the local black political machine.”

....that would be the local black DEMOCRAT political machine.

....local black gang shot caller in our old area used to host a popular ice cream social every summer....when a reporter asked him why he said “hey, you gotta give back to the community”....the urban mind can’t distinguish that Robin Hood was still a thief.

“You are closer than you might imagine.”

....I think you’re right....some years back members of Chicago’s notorious black street gang the Blackstone Rangers made contact with Libya’s Quadaffi....he offered them a surface-to-air missile

Certainly at the metaphysical level, these individuals are in need of hope. That’s not inconsistent with their responsibility to do no harm. We all need to recognize situations in which organized crime has replaced the civil structures of communities, thereby corrupting the whole. Capone, the Mafia, Hamas, domestic islamic groups, this Chicago gang all have the same goal in mind - control the community, its structure and its wealth. In terms of the metaphysical, my hope is placed with the law enforcement agencies who are tasked with dismantling this structure and isolating its individuals before the corruption spreads to other areas.

Certainly at the metaphysical level, these individuals are in need of hope. That’s not inconsistent with their responsibility to do no harm. We all need to recognize situations in which organized crime has replaced the civil structures of communities, thereby corrupting the whole. Capone, the Mafia, Hamas, domestic islamic groups, this Chicago gang all have the same goal in mind - control the community, its structure and its wealth. In terms of the metaphysical, my hope is placed with the law enforcement agencies who are tasked with dismantling this structure and isolating its individuals before the corruption spreads to other areas.

Meh... what's happened is that one gang(the federal gov) has gradually gotten better at getting rid of competing gangs(the mafia, the vice lords etc...). The federal gummit couldn't give two poos about the state of the communities the vice lords are in. If the vice lords disappeared tomorrow you'd get *worse* anarchy. Until there are civil structures waiting to replace the structures provided by the gangs the gangs will always exist.

The question, one that liberals try to answer very often, is how? Churches haven't helped. Maybe conscription?

Amen to that brutha. Gangs are inevitably the reason legit business stays away from the ‘hood. Entrepreneurs do not want to deal with violence and shakedowns.

The Mafia and Camorra are the reasons southern Italy stays poor and underdeveloped. Well, the corrupt and incompetent local government has played a role, as the trash scandal in Naples has shown.

Interesting that this canadian is giving two solutions, legalize drugs and enact "draconian" Clinton-style welfare reform.
I had to read his take on welfare reform twice to make sure I read it right and I'm still not sure.

However he is correct, take away the financial incentive to deal drugs and remain unemployed and these individuals will either starve or get jobs.

Well, it’s simple. The organized crime in the US didn’t REALLY take off until Prohibition. By criminalizing substances that were a problem but not a social plague before criminalization, the government (state and federal) has basically initiated (with the help of the sheeple) the erosion of civil liberties, the corruption of law ‘enforcement’ agencies, a growing fear and linking of guns with gangs and criminal activities (making it easier for gun control,) and enriched and empowered gangs and organized crime.

If we 1) legalize/decriminalize drugs and take away the financial premium associated with such widely demanded prohibited goods and 2) destroy the entitlement system so that it is only a temporary net, instead of a lifestyle choice you will end the subsidization of out-of-wedlock births, unemployment, disability aka ‘crazy checks,’ and juvenile delinquency; you will see the end or at least diminution of this problem.

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