Abstract
This book examines the “rampant street entrepreneurialism” of New York’s informal and illegal economy. The common thread is the con artist, the “confidence man” that relies on skills of ingratiation to persuade victims to engage in a scheme that will make him or her money. The “hook” is the victim’s “larceny,” thinking that he or she will steal from the con artist. This urge ensnares the victim makes the con work and enables the con artist to continue working without remorse because he or she is only doing “what the mark would do to me” (p. 8). This book should be distributed to visitors entering the city. I know it would have saved this reviewer the embarrassment of losing US$20 to a ball under the cup game as a wide-eyed 12-year-old tourist. I observed the game for a while and convinced myself I had figured it out enough to bet. To my disbelief, the ball was suddenly not under the expected cup. It turns out that con men work in crews with designated roles and rehearsed lines that enact an intricately planned sidewalk theater.
The authors are Terry Williams, who has published several books on crack and poverty in urban America over the past 30 years, and Trevor Milton, who has also previously published on crime-engaged youth and street life. In this book, they describe the cons and the con artists of New York over time, from the infamously high crime rates of the 1980s to the world renowned safe city and the Wall Street scandals from the “overabundance of derivatives” (p. 221) in 2008. Several specific cons are explained in step-by-step manner. Some are so wild that they seem implausible to both the writers and the reader. Perhaps the most extreme example is the case of “Lorena,” the landlord’s worst nightmare (p. 159). Lorena specialized in rent dodging and Section 8 fraud through various stalling techniques and an unusually keen awareness of tenant rights. She managed to live rent-free for years with full utilities by suing a string of owners for civil damages, exploiting a social climate where landlords are seen as the bad guys.
As the book progresses the analytical perspective is widened to the neighborhood and national levels. Particularly, the chapter on the numbers game and its patrons is fascinating reading. The arcane ways that the winning numbers are calculated boggles the mind and the undercurrent of conspiracy thinking is a look into a world that usually escapes academics. One of the interviewees reasoned that he was fired from his job as part of a plan “to keep Blacks in low paying jobs or no job at all” (p. 31). In his opinion, Black men can be picked up by police, just for being Black (p. 34). The overall model of explanation is the rational choice opportunity perspective on crime in combination with the postindustrial context of urban America. Here, the con men are trying to exploit available avenues for making a living on the bottom rungs of the city’s ecosystem. The con artists match their abilities to the changing opportunities that arise from selling crack to bootlegging DVDs. The authors draw on Mead and Goffman to explain the interaction between con men and their marks: “The art of deception and the science of persuasion” (p. 11). The authors make it a point to demonstrate how cons are an integral part of the economy at all levels. The city taxes con artists by writing tickets to street sellers and hosting investment bankers.
All in all, there are nine interviewees and a supporting cast of four more, for example, Lorena the nightmare tenant, a retired policeman, and a Wall Street trader. The data are notes, recordings, participant observation, and reconstructions of events. The methodology can be characterized as “collage ethnography” in the Chicago School tradition of urban sociology. This implies that some of these stories that form the data may be embellished; sometimes they may be outright lies or based on wild conspiracies. The authors explain how they have made efforts to verify the stories they were told but were not always successful. The book is part of the Studies in Transgression series founded by Jock Young and edited by David Brotherton. The stated aim of the series is to allow a voice to the human subjects who are often marginalized and pathologized. The authors have made a conscious effort to minimize academic consideration in the tradition of public criminology.
The book adds to the existing literature by updating the cons and the context. The previous studies on the subject were published in the late 1970s and early 1980s. This book provides an interesting, original, and updated account of how the social transformations of New York between the 1990s and 2000s were experienced by some of its most struggling inhabitants. It is easily read with only few footnote references to research from criminology, sociology, psychology, and economy. Finally, there is a five-page glossary of the colorful street vernacular that permeates the participant’s language. This was both helpful and entertaining to this reader, from the bodegas and bottom women to the tools and the touts.