Codes of the Underworld

Acknowledgments vii Introduction ix Abbreviations xxiii PART I: costly signals Chapter 1: Criminal Credentials 3 Chapter 2: The Power of Limits 30 Chapter 3: Information as Hostage 54 Chapter 4: Why Prisoners Fight (and Signal) 78 Chapter 5: Self-harm as a Signal 111 PART II: conventional signals Chapter 6: Conventional and Iconic Signals 149 Chapter 7: Protecting Easy-to-Fake Signals 174 Chapter 8: Criminal Trademarks 195 Chapter 9: Nicknames 230 Chapter 10: Why (Low) Life Imitates Art 251 Notes 275 Bibliography 313 Index 327

Diego Gambetta is Official Fellow of Nuffield College and professor of sociology at the University of Oxford. He is the author of "The Sicilian Mafia: The Business of Private Protection" and editor of "Making Sense of Suicide Missions".

One of New Scientist blog's Best Books for 2009 Winner of the 2010 Dorothy Lee Award for Outstanding Scholarship in the Ecology of Culture, Media Ecology Association Winner of the 2009 PROSE Award in Sociology and Social Work, Association of American Publishers "Criminals can't advertise their products on QVC, yet the mafia and the yakuza have prospered longer than most Fortune 500 companies. In Codes of the Underworld, sociologist Diego Gambetta examines how criminals communicate without being caught, how they build trust in a world where everyone is crooked... odes of the Underworld is colourful and engrossing: it could appeal to policymakers, academics, laymen or, God forbid, criminals looking to improve their game."--Spectator "[A]n absolutely fascinating look at the unique problems criminals face when trying to communicate with one another... Fans of crime fiction will love this."--Graham Lawton, NewScientist.com?s CultureLab blog "'A wiseguy sees things if there are wiseguy things to see,' wrote Joe Pistone, the FBI agent better known as Donnie Brasco--the name under which he managed to infiltrate the mob. But what are the wiseguy things to see? And how is a wiseguy to know he isn't dealing with the likes of Joe Pistone? Such questions are among those that fascinate Diego Gambetta. Professor Gambetta, an Italian sociologist based at Oxford University, has managed to wrap himself in the language of economics as capably as Pistone wrapped himself in the language of organised crime. Gambetta is an authority on the Sicilian mafia, but deploys the tools of an economist to understand them and other criminals."--Tim Harford, Financial Times "Criminals are in constant fear of being duped, says Diego Gambetta, even as they are busy duping others. Yet hoodlums often seek a literal partner in crime. This, he notes, creates a need for both identification and verification of trust in what is generally an untrustworthy milieu. Lacking a miscreants' yellow page, the question