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Book Review: Communities and Crime: An Enduring American Challenge

among fellow inmates. Similarly, in Chapter 5, Gambetta describes the value of self-harm as a signal in the prison environment, indicating to others a potential for madness or unprovoked violence, which may aid in inducing fear among fellow inmates. In Part II of Codes of the Underworld, which commences with Chapter 6, Gambetta discusses the challenges of signals with double meanings and the danger of misinterpretation of signals. Signals are essential for communicating in plain sight but have the potential to carry serious consequences whether the signal is missed or misunderstood. Gambetta observes three scenarios for signal misinterpretation: the first is a simple missing of the signal or lack of recognition; the second is the misidentification of a nonsignal as a signal. These effectively translate into Type I and Type II errors of criminal communication. The third category is misunderstanding of the meaning of the signal and the resulting fallout from failing to decipher the code correctly. This transitions into the need to have some form of verification of authenticity for easy to fake symbols. Chapters 7 and 8 provide discussion of the need to protect symbols that are easy to replicate for criminals. Gambetta discusses how criminals often use violence as a dystopian form of trademark enforcement against imposters who wrongfully use protected symbols such as tattoos. Those who wrongfully obtain a protected symbol can suffer grave consequences. Certain marks in the underworld can be used to convey a sort of brand quality. Gambetta notes that without a type of governmental rating system to assess and provide consumers with information regarding quality, criminals rely on reputation and symbols to convey quality. This practice has become a hallmark of trades in certain narcotics markets where drug suppliers have branding on packages that convey the provider to consumers. In some instances, the benefit for some heroin dealers of creating a brand may be worth the added risk of being associated with specific transactions in future police investigations. Like brand names, nicknames play an important role in the underworld. Various nicknames are used, but often names are reassigned to individuals providing a special anonymizing effect for thirdparty eavesdropping law enforcement. Sometimes nicknames may signify a particular skill, but this is not always the case. Gambetta concludes by discussing the evolution of real-life crime being inspired by Hollywood movie films, citing examples of mafia members watching films like the Godfather repeatedly or of the inverse with real-life mafia anecdotes inspiring Hollywood plots. Gambetta has done a fine job writing a book that is likely to be of interest to a wide range of readers. This book has more general appeal than most academic texts, though among academics, it is likely to be of particular interest to criminologists, economists, sociologists, those who study communications, and legal studies faculty with an interest in criminal networks. While an enjoyable and interesting read, Codes of the Underworld is likely best used as an introduction to the study of criminal communications, as the book relies heavily on anecdotes as illustrations for Gambetta’s arguments, as opposed to drawing connections to more academic sources.