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lunedì 4 settembre 2017

TUTTO In Defense of Flogging Peter Moskos

In Defense of Flogging

Peter Moskos

Last annotated on Monday September 4, 2017

75 Highlight(s) | 77 Note(s)

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crazy idea

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There are 2.3 million Americans in prison. That is too many. I want to reduce cruelty, and flogging may be the answer.
Note:CRUDELTÀ

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Given the choice between five years in prison and ten brutal lashes, which would you choose?
Note:DOMANDA.

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Taking away a large portion of somebody’s life through incarceration is a strange concept, especially if it’s rooted not in actual punishment but rather in some hogwash about making you a better person (more on that later). But what about prison itself? Prison is first and foremost a home of involuntary confinement, a “total institution” of complete dominance and regulation.
Note:PRIGIONE... UNA DEFINIZIONE

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even if you’re adamant that flogging is a barbaric, inhuman form of punishment, how can offering the choice be so bad? If flogging were really worse than prison, nobody would choose it. So what’s the harm in offering corporal punishment as an alternative to incarceration?
Note:OFFRIRE UNA SCELTA COME PASSO INTERMEDIO

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Prisons don’t work, but unfortunately neither does traditional opposition to them. Without more radical debate, preachers for prison reform will never be heard beyond the choir. There is no shortage of ideas on such things as rehab, job training, indeterminate sentencing, restorative justice, prison survival, and reentry.
Note:LA PRIGIONE NON FUNGE... L UNICO MODO CHE I RIFORMATORI HANNO PER ESSERE ASCOLTAT DAI CONSERVATORI

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Flogging may indeed be barbaric, but maybe barbarism has a bad rap.
Note:LA CATTIVA REPUTAZIONE DELLE BARBARIE

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I don’t want to add caning to an already brutal system of prison; instead, I propose an alternative to incarceration, what might be called “flog-and-release.”
Note:ALTERNATIVA NON AGGIUNTA... SIA CHIARO

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Ten lashes, a little rubbing alcohol, a few bandages, and you’d be free to go home and sleep in your own bed.
Note:DI COSA PARLIAMO

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Consider the case of Aaron Cohen, a New Zealander arrested with his drug-addicted mother for possessing heroin in Malaysia.
Note:UN CASO IN MALAYSYA

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It’s just incredible pain. More like a burning—like someone sticking an iron on your bum. . . . Afterwards my bum looked like a side of beef. There was three lines of raw skin with blood oozing out. . . . . You can’t sleep and can only walk like a duck. Your whole backside is three or four times bigger—swollen, black and blue. I made a full recovery within a month and am left with only slight scarring. Emotionally, I’m okay. I haven’t had any nightmares about that day, although I’m starting to dream about the prison.
Note:TESTIMONIANZA. 6 FRUSTATE

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you’d be led into a room where an attending physician would conduct an examination to make sure you’re physically fit enough to be flogged, that you won’t die under the intense shock of the cane.
Note:PRE VISITA

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The punishment would not be a public spectacle but would not be closed to the public. There would be perhaps a dozen spectators, including bailiffs and other representatives of the court, a lawyer, a doctor, perhaps a court reporter, and maybe a few relatives of both parties, including the victim.
Note:SPETTATORI

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the guard takes down your pants and adds a layer of padding over your back (to protect vital organs from errant strokes), the flogging would begin.
Note:IL PARAPALLE X PROTEGGERE ORGANI VITALI

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the skin at the point of contact is usually split open and, after three strokes, the buttocks will be covered with blood. All the strokes prescribed by the court . . . are given at one and the same time, at half minute intervals. . . . . The stroke follows the count, and the succeeding count is usually made about half a minute after the stroke has landed. Most of the prisoners put up a violent struggle after each of the first three strokes. Mr. Quek [the prison director] said: “After that, their struggles lessen as they become weaker. At the end of the caning, those who receive more than three strokes will be in a state of shock. Many will collapse, but the medical officer and his team of assistants are on hand to revive them and apply antiseptic on the caning wound.”
Note:SINGAPORE

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once they’ve patched you up, you’d be allowed to leave the courthouse a free man—no striped pajamas, no gangs, no learning from other criminals, no fear. You’d never have to find out what the inside of a prison is like.
Note:I VANTAGGI DELLE FRUSTATE

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The prison-abolition movement seems to have died right after a 1973 Presidential Advisory Commission said, “No new institutions for adults should be built, and existing institutions for juveniles should be closed,” and concluded, “The prison, the reformatory and the jail have achieved only a shocking level of failure.” Since then, even though violent crime in America has gone down, the incarceration rate has increased a whopping 500 percent.
Note:LA CONTRADDIZIONE: IL CARCERE FALLISCE MA SI COSTRUISCONO PIÙ CARCERI

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To understand the uselessness of incarceration—to appreciate just how specious the connection between increased incarceration and decreased crime really is—consider New York City. Not only did New York drastically cut crime, it did so while incarcerating fewer people.
Note:UTILITÀ DEL CARCERE... L ESEMPIO DI NY

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Better policing and massive immigration—not increased incarceration—contributed to New York’s crime drop. In the 1990s the NYPD got back in the crime prevention game: Drug dealers were pushed indoors, and crack receded in general. Also, police focused on quality-of-life issues, the so-called “broken windows.” At the same time more than one million foreign immigrants moved to New York City. Whether due to a strong work ethic, fear of deportation, traditional family values, or having the desire and means to emigrate in the first place, immigrants (nationwide and in New York City) have lower rates of crime and incarceration than native-born Americans. Astoundingly, today more than one in three New Yorkers are foreign born. Although policing in New York City deservedly received a lot of credit for the city’s crime drop, strangely, few people credit immigrants and almost nobody seemed to notice the winning strategy of “decarceration.”
Note:LE SOLUZIONI DI NY

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From 1970 to 1991 crime rose while we locked up a million more people.
Note:PERIODO 70 91

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One reason prison doesn’t reduce crime is that many prison-worthy offenses—especially drug crimes—are economically demand-motivated. This doesn’t change when a drug dealer is locked up.
Note:RAGIONI DEL FALLIMENTO... MOLTI CRIMINI SONO DEMAND DRIVEN

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Prison reformers—and I wish them well—tinker at the edges of a massive failed system. I’m all for what are called “intermediate sanctions”: House monitoring, GPS bracelets, intensive parole supervision, fines, restitution, drug courts, and day-reporting centers all show promise and deserve our full support. But we need much more drastic action. To bring our incarceration back to a civilized level—one we used to have and much more befitting a rich, modern nation—we would have to reduce the number of prisoners by 85 percent.
Note:RIFORMISTI

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IL RIFORMISMO NON INCIDE

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OBBIETTIVO 85%

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We could legalize and regulate drugs and also get soft on crime, but that’s also not likely to happen anytime soon.
Note:DEPENALIZZAZIONE

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we could offer the lash in exchange for sentence years, after the approval of some parole board designed to keep the truly dangerous behind bars. As a result, our prison population would plummet. This would not only save money but save prisons for those who truly deserve to be there: the uncontrollably dangerous.
Note:PRIGIONI A CHI SE LE MERITA

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Bernard Madoff, famously convicted in 2009 for running a massive Ponzi scheme, is being incarcerated and costing the public even more money. Why? He’s no threat to society. Nobody would give him a penny to invest. But Madoff did wrong and deserves to be punished. Better to cane him and let him go.

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CHI NN PUÒ RIPETERE IL CRIMINE... PRIMO CANDIDATO ALLE FRUSTATE

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imagine being the victim of a violent mugging. The last thing you remember before slipping into unconsciousness is the mugger pissing on you and laughing. Such things happen. Luckily, police catch the bastard, and he is quickly convicted. What should happen next? What if there were some way to reform this violent criminal without punishing him? In Sleeper, Woody Allen’s futuristic movie from the 1970s, there’s a device like a small walk-in closet called the “orgasmatron.” A person goes in and closes the door, lights flash, and three seconds later, well . . . that’s why they call it the orgasmatron. Now imagine, if you will, a device similar to the orgasmatron called the “reformatron.” It’s the perfect rehabilitation machine for criminals.
Note:X CAPIRE L IMPORTANZA DELLA PUNIZIONE RETRIBUTIVA... INTROSPEZIONE

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The cured criminal thanks God, kisses his baby’s mother, and walks out of the courtroom a free man to go home, relax, and think about job possibilities.
Note:c

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the concept is disturbingly lacking in justice.
Note:ccccccccc

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even among those who know the death penalty does not deter crime, support for the death penalty still runs three to one. Deterrence and punishment are separate issues. Punishment is about retribution.
Note:PENA DI MORTE

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LA DETERRENZA NON È GIUSTIZIA... ESEMPIO PENA DI MORTE

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In an ironic twist, we designed the prison system to replace flogging. The penitentiary was supposed to be a kinder and gentler sentence, one geared to personal salvation, less crime, and a better life for all.
Note:L OBIETTIVO INIZIALE DEIL SISTEMA PUNITIVO

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Before we had prisons, harsh confinement was used alongside corporal punishment. But such incarceration generally had another purpose, such as holding a person until trial, or until a debt was paid. Confinement was a means to an end:
Note:DAPPRIMA FU PUNIZIONE.... IL RINCHIUDERE ERA SOLO UN MEZZO... RETRIBUZIONE FUNZIONE PRIMARIA

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Today we know that prisons are not hospitals for the criminally ill (though prisons do house many mentally ill people, to horrible effect). At the time, however, many people hoped that we could purge criminality from a person’s system. The mantra of reformers became “treat not the crime, but the criminal.”
Note:I PRIMI RIFORMISTI... PRIGIONE COME OSPEDALE... CACCIARE IL DEMONE E RIEDUCARE... IL CARCERE DIVENTA NECESSARIO

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Cesare Beccaria, an Italian politician and philosopher, came up with the idea of deterrence in his 1764 Essay on Crimes and Punishments. Beccaria transformed theories of criminality. Contrary to popular beliefs, Beccaria posited that the Devil himself did not actually possess criminals. Instead, said Beccaria, people have free will to act rationally
Note:BECCARIA: STOP PRIGIONE OSPEDALE E VIA PRIGIONE DETERRENZA... SECONDA CORRENTE RIFORMISTA

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Despite the difficulties of putting Beccaria’s theories into practice, these notions of deterrence and crime prevention form the basis of what is now known as the classical school of criminology.
Note:SCUOLA CLASSICA DI CRIMINOLOGIA

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In America the British system of execution and harsh flogging gave way to what was supposed to be a softer and reforming system of penitentiaries.
Note:IL RIFORMISMO COMINCIA LA SUA MARCIA

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Based on Howard’s vision, a small jail in Wymondham, England, was rebuilt in 1787 on the principles of hard labor, solitary confinement, and penance (hence the name “penitentiary”).
Note:I RIFORMISMI CONVERGONO: RIEDUCAZIONE CALVINISTA E DETERRENZA BECCARIA

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So in 1787 the Philadelphia Society for Alleviating the Miseries of Public Prisons was established by Quaker-raised Benjamin Rush. The Society condemned the jails and public punishments of its time, proposing that isolating prisoners in solitary cells would be more effective than flogging. The key to this belief is a firm and paternalistic conviction that crime is a moral disease.
Note:RIFORMISTI: CONDANNA DELLA PUNIZIONE PUBBLICA... ALTERNATIVA: PENITENZA

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Bentham’s Panopticon, written the same year Rush established the Prison Society, offered “a new mode of obtaining power of mind over mind, in a quantity hitherto without example . . . all by a simple idea in Architecture!”
Note:BENTHAM E LA SORVEGLIANZA DEI PENITENTI

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With a half loaf of bread a day for weeks, this “humane” replacement to flogging literally starved men into submission.
Note:COSA HA RIMPIAZZATO LA FRUSTATA?… BUONE INTENZIONI FINITE MALE

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The goal, prison commissioners said, was to keep prisoners so isolated that if they were in prison on election night, they wouldn’t know who was president of the United States
Note:ISOLARE ISOLARE ISOLARE

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Martinson’s national fame came later, with a multiauthored, 735-page tome rather academically titled The Effectiveness of Correctional Treatment: A Survey of Treatment Evaluation Studies
Note:NOTHING WORKS

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His 1974 Public Interest article on the subject, “What Works?,” became known in policy circles as “Nothing Works!”
Note:cccccccc

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Like many reformers, Martinson just wanted effective rehabilitation. But unlike many reformers, Martinson was brutally honest about existing failures.
Note:cccccccc

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even societies that gleefully hurt others rarely if ever placed a human being in a cell for punishment.
Note:NEANCHE LE SOCIETÀ PIÙ CRUDELI HANNO MAI PRODOTTO PRIGIONI

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Prison is an insidious marriage of entombment and torture. Not only are inmates immured in prison, they are also subjected to never-ending physical and mental agony.
Note:TOMBA E TERTURA

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Approximately one in twenty prison inmates say they’ve been sexually assaulted
Note:SEX ASSAULT

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Without gang protection or a long-term committment to solitary confinement, the danger of sexual assault is ever-present.
Note:GANG PROTACTION

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If you’re stuck in prison, why wouldn’t you take drugs? What else are you going to do?
Note:DROGHE E ALTRI ABUSI

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In jail people naturally fulfill the role expected of them. Consider Philip Zimbardo’s notorious 1971 Stanford Prison Experiment.
Note:AD OGNUNO IL SUO RUOLO

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Of the more than seven hundred thousand prisoners released each year, two-thirds are rearrested within three years, and half end up back in prison.
Note:RECIDIVA DI MASSA

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Part of the problem is that not only do prisons not “cure” crime, they’re truly criminogenic:
Note:CURA CRIMINOGENA

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It’s a sad day when the best-case scenario after getting out of jail is being homeless—but this is reality.
Note:DA CARCERATO A BARBONE... SE VA BENE

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The survival of mass incarceration can be traced, in no small degree, to the same kinds of economic pressures that once drove slavery itself. Incarceration is a business.
Note:L AFFARE DELLE CARCERI

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In truth, private prisons rarely save much money. The savings that do exist come mostly from labor; the average pay in private prisons is three-quarters of that found in public prisons.
Note:IL RISPARMIO DEI PRIVATI

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we have adapted prisons to confine our mentally ill,
Note:UNA SOLUZIONE AI MALATI MENTALI

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Sometime in the past few decades we seem to have lost the concept of justice in a free society. Now we settle for simple efficiency of process.
Note:MENO EFFICIENZA PIÙ GIUSTIZIA

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Although the prison system is unarguably broken, many people have yet to acknowledge that the problem is the system itself and not just the way it’s run.
Note:MOLTI INSISTONO A VOLER SALVARE IL SISTEMA

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No matter how tough we get, because prisons do not punish in a comprehensible manner, incarceration will never satisfy the public’s legitimate desire for punishment.
Note:LA PUNIZIONE DEL CARCERE È INCOMPRENSIBILE

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If prisons are broken, then so, too, is prison reform.
Note:RIFORME IN PANNE

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In twenty-first-century America, could we have court-sanctioned flogging? It’s unclear, but it’s not currently prohibited. The Supreme Court has never explicitly ruled on the matter, and until it does, we should assume it’s constitutional.
Note:FRUSTARE È COSTITUZIONALE

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To flog with consent is key.
Note:PARTICOLARE DEL CONSEENSO

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If you think flogging lets people off too easily, we could debate the appropriate number of lashes.
Note:TROPPO POCA DETERRENZA? DISCUTIAMO IL NUMERO DELLE FRUSTATE

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Violence may seem an unsavory alternative to prison, but punishment must by definition hurt in some way, be it emotionally, psychologically, monetarily, or physically. Punishment must cause pain.
Note:ALA VIOLENZA VFISICA VI FA PAURA? IPOCRITI!

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Physical violence has the advantage of being honest, inexpensive, and easy to understand.
Note:VIOLENZA FISICA... ONESTA ECONOMICA E FACILE DA CAPIRE

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Along with a fondness for cricket and warm beer, the British exported the lash throughout their colonial empire (though we’ve moved on to baseball and cold beer).
Note:FRUSTATE IN STILE IMPERO... GLI ESPORTATORI

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Both Amnesty International and the UN Human Rights Committee criticize flogging as cruel, degrading, and contrary to human rights law.
Note:FRUSTARE... ATTO CONTRO I DIRITTI UMANI

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At this point the more open-minded reader may like pain as punishment but dislike the symbolism and messiness of flogging.
Note:SOSTANZA E SIMBOLO

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A machine, perhaps much more than a person, could guarantee consistency of pain
Note:RICORSO ALLE MACCHINE?

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Consider this 1898 New York Times account of an “electric spanking chair”
Note:cccccccc

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Flogging is indeed very harsh, but it’s not torture—not
Note:NO TORTURA

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Flogging is refreshingly transparent and honest.
Note:ONESTÀ.... PER QS MEGLIO EVITARE LE MACCHINE

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Immediacy, proportionality, transparency, and choice are all critical components
Note:COMPONENTI CRITICHE DELLA PENA CORPORALE #####

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Some offenders do need to be incarcerated and kept away from society. But for the vast majority of criminal suspects, flogging would be a viable option.
Note:FILTRARE I CRIMINALI... SOLO ALCUNI SONO ADATTI

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Flogging is not a slippery step toward amputation, public stoning, or sharia law. This is not the first step on a path to hell.
Note:ATTENZIONE AL.PIANO INCLINATO

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the moral qualms, the spattered blood, lawsuits, policy details, and a certain retrograde feeling to the whole proposition.
ELEMENTI TRASCURATI

venerdì 17 febbraio 2017

Una giornata da criminale

Nella nostra testa c’è l’idea dello spacciatore benestante. Mentre i nostri figli muoiono in strada, lui conta l’incasso comodamente stravaccato sul divano mentre tira un po’ di coca. Una vita a rischio ma dai soldi facili…

... The media eagerly glommed on to this story, portraying crack dealing as one of the most profitable jobs in America...

Sorge spontanea una domanda: perché allora abita nelle case popolari con la mamma?...

... not only did most of the crack dealers still live in the projects, but most of them still lived at home with their moms...

Se lo sono chiesti Steven Levitt e Stephen Dubner nel saggio " Why Do Drug Dealers Still Live with Their Moms? Freakonomics: A Rogue Economist Explores the Hidden Side of Everything".

La cosa migliore per capire è trascorrere una giornata da criminale. Anzi, con i criminali. Magari più di una giornata, magari un mese. Un anno.

***

Sudhir Venkatesh è nato in India e cresciuto nella suburbia newyorkese, poi si è trasferito in California dove si è laureato in matematica alla University of California di San Diego. Progettava di specializzarsi in sociologia presso l' Università di Chicago, era interessato a come i ragazzi del ghetto formano la loro identità. A questo scopo ricevette un questionario da somministrare ai protagonisti...

... His assignment: to visit Chicago’s poorest black neighborhoods with a clipboard and a seventy-question, multiple-choice survey. This was the first question on the survey: How do you feel about being black and poor? a. Very bad b. Bad c. Neither bad nor good d. Somewhat good e. Very good...

Andò in un edificio abbandonato dove poche famiglie vivevano al pian terreno piratando acqua ed elettricità. I piani superiori erano una pericolosa “terra di nessuno”. L'ascensore non funzionava nemmeno. Lì incontrò un gruppo di ragazzotti poco raccomandabili che giocava a dadi. Erano una gang di piccoli spacciatori, una filiale della Gangster Disciple Nation. Non erano contenti di vedere un estranea, a quel tempo era in corso una guerra tra bande. Che fare dell'intruso? Lasciarlo andare dopo averlo spaventato o... A quel punto, per fortuna, comparì un “anziano” a raffreddare i bollori. Prese il questionario a scelta multipla e lo trovò incompleto...

... he realized that the multiple-choice answers A through E were insufficient. In reality, he now knew, the answers should have looked like this: a. Very bad b. Bad c. Neither bad nor good d. Somewhat good e. Very good f. Fuck you...

Mancava l'opzione "vaffanculo", l'unica che era disposto a barrare.

Poi, per ultimo, apparve il capo, JT. Disse che non poteva rispondere alle domande perché erano rivolte a ragazzi neri afroamericani. Lui non era né nero né afroamericano. Era un negro.

Venkatesh realizzava progressivamente quanto fosse stupida la sua missione...

... Venkatesh would occasionally try to discuss his survey, but the young crack dealers just laughed and told him how stupid his questions were...

Era molto più istruttivo passare del tempo con questa fauna...

... It struck Venkatesh that most people, including himself, had never given much thought to the daily life of ghetto criminals. He was now eager to learn how the Black Disciples worked, from top to bottom...

Capì subito che JT era un tipo "quadrato", scoprì poi che era anche laureato...

... As it happened, J. T. was a college graduate himself, a business major. After college, he had taken a job in the Loop, working in the marketing department of a company that sold office equipment. But he felt so out of place there—like a white man working at Afro Sheen headquarters, he liked to say—that he quit. Still, he never forgot what he learned. He knew the importance of collecting data and finding new markets; he was always on the lookout for better management strategies. It was no coincidence, in other words, that J. T. was the leader of this crack gang. He was bred to be a boss...

Chi ritiene che la laurea non serva a nulla, sappia che invece nel crimine serve eccome. Con una laurea in tasca le possibilità di carriera lievitano.

Dopo qualche giorno Venkatesh si ritrovò "embedded" a tutti gli effetti nella banda, e rimase tale per un anno...

... For the next six years, Venkatesh practically lived there. Under J. T.’s protection he watched the gang members up close, at work and at home...

Capì la durezza di quella vita: tutti i giorni una guerra. La gente lottava per sopravvivere.

Un bel giorno un membro della banda consegnò a V un libro che si rivelò molto prezioso per le sue ricerche. Era il libro mastro della gang...

... He handed Venkatesh a stack of well-worn spiral notebooks—blue and black, the gang’s colors. They represented a complete record of four years’ worth of the gang’s financial transactions. At J. T.’s direction, the ledgers had been rigorously compiled: sales, wages, dues, even the death benefits paid out to the families of murdered members...

JT teneva una meticolosa contabilità (del resto era laureato in finanza).

Come operava la gang sul territorio? Qual era il suo business-plan? A dire il vero, somigliava molto a quello di McDonald's, le differenze era minime...

... So how did the gang work? An awful lot like most American businesses, actually, though perhaps none more so than McDonald’s. In fact, if you were to hold a McDonald’s organizational chart and a Black Disciples org chart side by side, you could hardly tell the difference...

L’organizzazione era chiaramente piramidale: vertici alti e base larga. Ecco la scala degli stipendi…

… J. T. paid the board of directors nearly 20 percent of his revenues for the right to sell crack in a designated twelve-square-block area. The rest of the money was his to distribute as he saw fit. Three officers reported directly to J. T.: an enforcer (who ensured the gang members’ safety), a treasurer (who watched over the gang’s liquid assets), and a runner (who transported large quantities of drugs and money to and from the supplier). Beneath the officers were the street-level salesmen known as foot soldiers…

Lo spacciatore di strada ha un solo obbiettivo: diventare mini-boss. Questo perché la sua è una vita di merda: alti rischi e basso stipendio (ma sopra di lui intravede il paradiso)…

… At the very bottom of J. T.’s organization were as many as two hundred members known as the rank and file. They were not employees at all. They did, however, pay dues to the gang—some for protection from rival gangs, others for the chance to eventually earn a job as a foot soldier…

JT, per esempio, guadagna bene, specie dopo il boom del crack…

… In the first year, it took in an average of $18,500 each month; by the final year, it was collecting $68,400 a month…

Le bande, oltre ai soldati-spacciatori, si avvalgono dell’opera di “autonomi” precari…

… The gang did allow some rank-and-file members to sell heroin on its turf but accepted a fixed licensing fee in lieu of a share of profits…

Il finanziamento delle operazioni è affidato perlopiù alla vendita del crack, ma c’è anche un gettito fiscale…

… The extortionary taxes were paid by other businesses that operated on the gang’s turf, including grocery stores, gypsy cabs, pimps, and people selling stolen goods or repairing cars on the street…

E nelle uscite si contabilizza anche la paga di mercenari…

… Mercenary fighters were nonmembers hired on short-term contracts to help the gang fight turf wars…

Poi il varie ed eventuali: parcella avvocato, bustarella corruzione, feste, birra...

Infine, c’è la spesa sociale: funerali, pensioni, sussidi di povertà… Una specie di welfare per il ghetto…

… The gang not only paid for the funeral but often gave a stipend of up to three years’ wages to the victim’s family…

Domanda a un membro della banda: ma perché siete tanto generosi con il quartiere?…

… “That’s a fucking stupid question,” he was told, “’cause as long as you been with us, you still don’t understand that their families is our families. We can’t just leave ’em out. We been knowing these folks our whole lives, man… You got to respect the family.”…

Ma c’è un’altra ragione: una vicinanza ostile rappresenta una minaccia.

Sia come sia, mi pare chiara la parentela tra stato e banda criminale. Nel bene come nel male.

***

Facciamo ora i conti in tasca a JT…

… Here is the single line item in the gang’s budget that made J. T. the happiest: Net monthly profit accruing to leader $8,500 At $8,500 per month, J. T.’s annual salary was about $100,000—tax-free, of course, and not including the various off-the-books money he pocketed…

8500 al mese, non male.

E JT è uno dei 100 piccoli boss dei “Black Disciples”.

Un top-boss (ne esistono una ventina) incamera 500.000 all’anno, anche se 1/3 di loro è in prigione.

Una piramide a base larga, dicevamo. In fondo si guadagnano 3 euro l’ora (la metà di una baby sitter). Uno stipendio da fame che ci fa capire perché lo spacciatore vive nelle case popolari con la mammina…

… J. T.’s hourly wage was $66. His three officers, meanwhile, each took home $700 a month, which works out to about $7 an hour. And the foot soldiers earned just $3.30 an hour, less than the minimum wage. So the answer to the original question—if drug dealers make so much money, why are they still living with their mothers?—is that, except for the top cats, they don’t make much money…

Per ogni criminale milionario ce ne sono centinaia che vivacchiano senza il becco di un quattrino.

La gang è come una multinazionale: manager strapagati e tanto, tanto precariato sottopagato…

… In other words, a crack gang works pretty much like the standard capitalist enterprise: you have to be near the top of the pyramid to make a big wage… Notwithstanding the leadership’s rhetoric about the family nature of the business, the gang’s wages are about as skewed as wages in corporate America. A foot soldier had plenty in common with a McDonald’s burger flipper or a Wal-Mart shelf stocker…

Molti spacciatori fanno un doppio lavoro per sopravvivere, il secondo spesso è legale, magari proprio da McDonald’s.

Ma perché questi peones non vengono pagati un po’ di più viste le risorse della gang? Risposta di un leader…

… “You got all these niggers below you who want your job, you dig?” he said. “So, you know, you try to take care of them, but you know, you also have to show them you the boss. You always have to get yours first, or else you really ain’t no leader. If you start taking losses, they see you as weak and shit.”…

La paga serve ad incentivare, per un peones l’ incentivo è costituito dalla paga dei capi (ovvero di cio’ che mirano a diventare), non c’è bisogno di alzare la loro. La ricchezza si concentra in alto.

Oltretutto, i soldati della gang lavorano in condizioni terribili…

… For starters, they had to stand on a street corner all day and do business with crackheads. (The gang members were strongly advised against using the product themselves, advice that was enforced by beatings if necessary.) Foot soldiers also risked arrest and, more worrisome, violence…

Se pagassero l’ INAIL il loro premio sarebbe astronomico…

… A 1-in-4 chance of being killed! Compare these odds with those for a timber cutter, which the Bureau of Labor Statistics calls the most dangerous job in the United States. Over four years’ time, a timber cutter would stand only a 1-in-200 chance of being killed…

La loro speranza di vita è più bassa di chi risiede nel “braccio della morte” del Texas…

… compare the crack dealer’s odds to those of a death-row inmate in Texas, which executes more prisoners than any other state. In 2003, Texas put to death twenty-four inmates—or just 5 percent of the nearly 500 inmates on its death row during that time. Which means that you stand a greater chance of dying while dealing crack in a Chicago housing project than you do while sitting on death row in Texas…

Domanda legittima: se la paga è da fame e il lavoro di merda, perché farlo? Semplice…

… for the same reason that a pretty Wisconsin farm girl moves to Hollywood… They all want to succeed in an extremely competitive field in which, if you reach the top, you are paid a fortune…

Si tenta la fortuna.

Si tratta di un lavoro glamour: sempre a contatto con l’oro… e dopo tanta merda, l’oro potrà cadere copioso su di te. Uno su mille ce la fa, ma quell’uno vive da dio…

… To the kids growing up in a housing project on Chicago’s south side, crack dealing seemed like a glamour profession…

Teniamo anche conto da dove vengono questi ragazzi e le alternative che hanno…

… Fifty-six percent of the neighborhood’s children lived below the poverty line (compared to a national average of 18 percent). Seventy-eight percent came from single-parent homes. Fewer than 5 percent of the neighborhood’s adults had a college degree; barely one in three adult men worked at all. The neighborhood’s median income was about $15,000 a year…

Naturalmente, le professioni glamour hanno il già citato inconveniente…

… The problem with crack dealing is the same as in every other glamour profession: a lot of people are competing for a very few prizes…

Lo si capisce meglio se si tengono nel dovuto conto le 4 leggi del lavoro…

… These budding drug lords bumped up against an immutable law of labor: when there are a lot of people willing and able to do a job, that job generally doesn’t pay well. This is one of four meaningful factors that determine a wage. The others are the specialized skills a job requires, the unpleasantness of a job, and the demand for services that the job fulfills. The delicate balance between these factors helps explain why, for instance, the typical prostitute earns more than the typical architect…

Una prostituta, anche alle prime armi, guadagna bene: la sua professione è l’ anti-glamour per eccellenza: nessuna sogna di diventarlo…

… little girls don’t grow up dreaming of becoming prostitutes, so the supply of potential prostitutes is relatively small. Their skills, while not necessarily “specialized,” are practiced in a very specialized context. The job is unpleasant and forbidding in at least two significant ways: the likelihood of violence and the lost opportunity of having a stable family life. As for demand? Let’s just say that an architect is more likely to hire a prostitute than vice versa…

Nei lavori glamour, al contrario, vige la legge del “torneo”…

… In the glamour professions—movies, sports, music, fashion—there is a different dynamic at play. Even in second-tier glamour industries like publishing, advertising, and media, swarms of bright young people throw themselves at grunt jobs that pay poorly and demand unstinting devotion. An editorial assistant earning $22,000 at a Manhattan publishing house, an unpaid high-school quarterback, and a teenage crack dealer earning $3.30 an hour are all playing the same game, a game that is best viewed as a tournament. The rules of a tournament are straightforward. You must start at the bottom to have a shot at the top…

Devi lavorare duro e a lungo, in più a stipendi da fame; questo se vuoi spuntarla. E se non ce la fai, la cosa più semplice è mollare tutto.

Tra i “soldati” di JT il turn over è continuo: la gente molla dopo un po’.

***

Ma tra tanti pericolo il vero terrore dei boss è la guerra tra clan. E’ terribile per i loro profitti…

… But with a gang war, sales plummet because customers are so scared of the violence that they won’t come out in the open to buy their crack. In every way, war was expensive for J. T. So why did he start the war? As a matter of fact, he didn’t. It was his foot soldiers who started it. It turns out that a crack boss didn’t have as much control over his subordinates as he would have liked…

Eppure le guerre ci sono, spesso sono i peones più coglioni a farle partire con qualche sgarbo che innesca un’ escalation. Poi, tornare indietro è impossibile.

Il fatto è che ai peones ambiziosi la guerra giova: è un’occasione per distinguersi, per mettere in mostra il loro valore, la loro attitudine a diventare capetti. Un killer è rispettato e temuto.

I capi, al contrario, vogliono la pace e nei loro incontri non fanno che maledire gli elementi rissosi della cosca…

… “We try to tell these shorties that they belong to a serious organization,” he once told Venkatesh. “It ain’t all about killing. They see these movies and shit, they think it’s all about running around tearing shit up. But it’s not. You’ve got to learn to be part of an organization; you can’t be fighting all the time. It’s bad for business.”…

JT ha la mentalità del capo, è un vincente. Anche per questo ama la pace e gli affari…

… J. T. was a winner. He was paid well because so few people could do what he did. He was a tall, good-looking, smart, tough man who knew how to motivate people. He was shrewd too, never tempting arrest by carrying guns or cash. While the rest of his gang lived in poverty with their mothers, J. T. had several homes, several women, several cars. He also had his business education, of course. He constantly worked to extend this advantage. That was why he ordered the corporate-style bookkeeping that eventually found its way into Sudhir Venkatesh’s hands…

JT entrerà nel Board della gang, era un predestinato. Ma anche la sua fine sarà abbastanza prevedibile…

… Not long after he made the board of directors, the Black Disciples were essentially shut down by a federal indictment—the same indictment that led the gangster named Booty to turn over his notebooks to Venkatesh—and J. T. was sent to prison…

COMMENTO PERSONALE

Nel mio immaginario Sudhir Venkatesh si è sempre affiancato/contrapposto a Roberto Saviano: entrambi hanno mirabilmente descritto dall’interno il mondo del crimine, lo hanno vissuto e lo conoscono a menadito. Entrambi hanno assimilato la criminalità ad una multinazionale. Entrambi hanno messo in luce le ferree leggi della malavita e la loro parentela con le ferree leggi dell’economia di mercato. Ma Saviano, facendo questa scoperta, si è depresso. Ha trovato opprimente la potenza di una Mafia “intelligente”. Venkatesh invece si è entusiasmato: se il crimine ragiona, se risponde agli incentivi, possiamo controllarlo, re-instradarlo, basta produrre gli incentivi giusti. JT è una persona ragionevole, sa fare i suoi conti, il suo libro mastro è impeccabile. JT è uno dei nostri, pensa esattamente come noi, non è un alieno, uno psicopatico, con lui si puo’ parlare, possiamo sistemarlo nel “nostro” mondo come merita perché é in grado di comprenderlo alla perfezione.

mercoledì 15 febbraio 2017

3 Why Do Drug Dealers Still Live with Their Moms? Freakonomics Rev Ed: A Rogue Economist Explores the Hidden Side of Everything by Steven D. Levitt, Stephen J. Dubner

by Steven D. Levitt, Stephen J. Dubner

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Last annotated on February 15, 2017

2 How Is the Ku Klux Klan Like a Group of Real-Estate Agents?Read more at location 799

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3 Why Do Drug Dealers Still Live with Their Moms?Read more at location 1263

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The media eagerly glommed on to this story, portraying crack dealing as one of the most profitable jobs in America.Read more at location 1320

Note: LO SPACCIATORE RICCONE. CONVENZIONE Edit

not only did most of the crack dealers still live in the projects, but most of them still lived at home with their moms.Read more at location 1322

Note: X MA XCHÈ ABITANO CON LA MAMMA NELLE CASE POPOLARI? Edit