[약식 서평: Diego Gambetta's] Codes of the Underworld: How Criminals Communicate

출처: Codes of the Underworld: How Criminals Communicate (Tyler Cowen, 2009년 8월)

※ 발췌 (excerpt):

That's the new book by Diego Gambetta and it is the best applied book on signaling theory to date.  Gambetta's task is well summarized by a single sentence:

Given these propensities, one wonders how criminals ever manage to do anything together.

The signaling problems faced by criminals are unusual in the following regard. On one hand they wish to signal a certain untrustworthiness, namely that they are criminals in the first place. This is useful for both meeting other criminals and also for intimidating potential victims. On the other hand, the criminals wish to signal that they are potentially cooperative, for the purpose of working with other criminals. Sending these dual signals isn't easy and Gambetta well understands the complexity of the task at hand. As Henry points out, facial tattoos are one particular effective method of signaling that one is a criminal for life.

Here is a passage which I found striking: ( ... ... )

Gambetta wonders whether women in prison resort to violence so frequently because they have fewer alternative means of signaling toughness.