The Three Tracks: The Sopranos and The Wire
I grew up in pre-Giuliani New York City, back when the crack epidemic was at its peak, Times Square was a seedy porn capital of the world filled with the shadiest characters you could imagine, arcades weren’t family friendly and were filled with thugs and street kids and wearing anything nice like a Starter jacket, Air Jordans or an 8-Ball jacket was an open invitation for dudes to try to test you and rob you.
So if you were like me and didn’t want to be a crook or a victim, you’re best option was to get as street smart as you could, and even better was if you could actually become friends with the thugs because that meant you wouldn’t be a victim yourself. And thus started my lifelong pattern of always making friends with shady people, something that continued all the way through my college years. There are various type of criminals, and even if you aren’t involved in crime you have to understand and recognize the types if you live in the city just to navigate your daily life activities. Think of it like three classes: crash test dummies, middle management and players. Most of the hustlers I befriended were the crash test dummies, and through them I learned a lot about how things work in the big picture. Two shows that felt uncannily real-life to me were the series The Sopranos and The Wire, to the point where I feel I can use them to illustrate almost any real-life point (especially true for The Wire.) So that’s exactly what I’m going to do here.
Crash test dummies are the people who are too unambitious, stupid, impulsive or unreliable to ever be given serious responsibilities or achieving major power in a criminal organization. As a result, they are treated as totally expendable. But the cause and effect is not always so cut and dried. Sometimes the causation flows in the opposite direction and they start out with a lot of potential and drive but only end up acting unambitious, stupid, impulsie or unreliable after a long period of feeling unappreciated and being treated as totally expendable. They’re called crash dummies because you just point them in a direction and let them go and they just speed ahead into a suicide mission, no questions asked. Higher ups feel you can’t trust them with too much information because they have zero character, even by criminal standards, and are often the first ones breaking under pressure and snitching. In reality though this doesn’t always happen due to poor character so much as a feeling of being lack of attachment and investment in the overall good of the organization, due to lack of involvement, reciprocation and rewards from the organization.
It’s important not to take the “dummies” part of the name too literally and think it always refers to their intelligence. The “dummies” moniker primarily refers to their expendability and their lack of say in their ultimate fate. Many crash test dummies are actually pretty bright although many are indeed stupid also. The bright ones often suffer more from lack of motivation to try harder than bare minimum than lack of smarts, and that lack of motivation usually comes from frustration and resignation once they realize they’re never going to rise above a certain level. They develop a “why bother to excel” mindset as a result. Unfortunately this often gets read as further evidence of incompetence and stupidity by higher ups, which leads to being treated as more expendable and less appreciated, which leads to the crash dummy becoming less motivated to excel, which again gets read by higher ups as more evidence of incompetence and stupidity…and then you get a vicious cycle (circle?), or reinforcing loop.
Although many crash dummies are relatively bright and have potential and only underperform because they are disillusion and have given up on advancement, there are indeed many more who indeed justifiably viewed as stupid and unreliable. It’s this majority that cause the whole category to be painted with a broad brush. You can’t give them anything too important to do because they’re too incompetent and impulsive. But because they are often hot-tempered knuckleheads who are eager to please and have cultlike unquestioning loyalty they’re good for some things, like swelling the organization numbers to intimidating sizes, doing risky dirty work that more important and valued members of the organization don’t want get directly involved in, volunteering for suicide missions against enemies that require self-sacrifice either in terms of their lives or their freedom…you get the idea. Flunkies. Even a crash dummy who isn’t prone to extreme violence can still be cannon fodder in the form of a street dealer, the drug dealer often lowest in the chain and furthest out on the frontline, like the pawns on a chessboard.
Crash dummies are the type of crook most average folk on the street should learn to recognize and fear the most. These are the both the most impulsive, rash criminals and also the ones you’re most likely to interact with because they are the bottom feeders, the parasites that directly feed on the community. The knuckleheads most likely to shoot a victim unnecessarily right after already getting the money from a mugging or a robbery, then brag about it to everyone in their neighborhood so someone can snitch on them immediately. The big problem with many crash dummies is that they are so concerned with short term day to day hustling goals like bling, rims, weed to smoke and new hoodrat bitches to fuck that they never stop to reflect and gain the self-awareness needed to realize what they are. Think of any soldier who operated underneath Christopher in The Sopranos series. Or the dumber street dealers in the series The Wire.
The few crash dummies who are at least hip enough to the game to realize what they are can actually become remarkably good at self-preservation and either get out eventually to enter the square, straight life or figure out a way to play the politics correctly, distinguish themselves somehow and jump into the next track, middle management. These are the Groomable Crash Test Dummies as Opposed to the Career Crash Test Dummies, the latter category being who I was mostly talking about so far. An example of Groomable Crash Test Dummy is Bodie from The Wire.
Middle management types are the solid earners for the organization, the ones who often have the most longevity because they are high enough to not have to get their hands as dirty as the crash dummies but low enough that they can often fly under the radar. Some start off in middle management from the right connections or distinguishing themselves early and some ended up there after starting off as Groomable Crash Test Dummies. The flunkies are often targeted because they’re so easy to get. The top dogs are often targeted because they are so larger-than-life and make such juicy catches. Middle management crooks get their share of grief but if they manage to keep a low profile they often are the best success stories in the long run. They are the ones who have an actual career track rather than the dead end careers crash dummies have, but no matter how high they get in the middle management career track, few or none will never make the jump to the higher career trackThink of Pauly Walnuts in The Sopranos or Slim Charles from The Wire.
The players are the top dogs. The ones who really make the power moves. They either are at the head of the organization, are directly in line to lead the organization at a future time, or are in the trusted circle of the head of the organization as trusted advisors and confidantes. They either have direct access to exercising power or they have the ears of the people who do wield such power. Tony Soprano and Phil Leotardo are players. So are Avon Barksdale and Stringer Bell.
Some people exist in a limbo between categories. An example would be Christopher from The Sopranos, who existed in a limbo between crash dummy and middle management. His impulsiveness, lack of self-awareness and poor discipline gave him the mindset of a crash dummy, but his connections got him put onto a middle management track that he was never truly cut out for, which led to constant conflicts both external and internal. D’Angelo Barksdale existed in limbo across three categories: he had the vision and smarts and family connections to be a player, but he in some ways he was too gentle a soul at heart and was out of place, plus he was too ahead of the curve with his ideas to the point the current top guys didn’t appreciate that his ideas for the organization were actually good. But his actual position was middle management, despite his relative wisdom. Most likely because he didn’t have the killer instinct and drive needed for a player. And furthermore, in the first episode we see him demoted to overseeing the low level dealers, the crash dummies of the organization, due to his own momentary lapse into crash dummy behavior, an impulsive murder.
So you may be thinking “This is all interesting and well and good, but what’s the point of knowing all this crap about crooks?” And if you are thinking that, then you really haven’t learned enough from this blog because you should realize by now that most truths are universal, and this one is no exception. The more I lived and worked in the real life after school ended, the more I realized that every organization and industry basically broke down to these three tracks, with the same pros and cons and benefits and dysfunctions they have in the criminal world. (The Wire does a much better job of illustrating this than The Sopranos, which is probably why it’s my absolute favorite show ever) This is why so many people claim that the players in the criminal world could have been great businessmen if they applied their talents to legitimate industry instead of to crime. (Personally I disagree, but that’s a topic for another post)
(If you ever want to read astounding episode by episode dissections of both series, I highly recommend going through TV critic Alan Sepinwall’s blog “What’s Alan Watching?” You can find his episode by episode dissections by clicking the appropriate links in his sidebar)
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What about the loose familial tree connections between LE/Fire and the crime world? Where does that fit in your analyses?
Great post! but my favorite player in the “Wire” series Marlo Stanfield wasn’t mentioned. He was young and arguably the most successful player. What personality traits made him a success? I would love to see a post dissecting his personality type.
G, that’s easy. Stringer was a “businessmane” and Avon was a “gangster.” Marlo was something else entirely. He was a sociopath.
.-= j r´s last blog ..“If you want a picture of the future, imagine a boot stamping on a human face—forever.” =-.
Mala – what does LE/Fire mean?
G and j r – In the original post I deliberately limited my examples to first season members of both casts to make the examples more accessible to people who haven’t made their way deeply into either series. That’s why I left Marlo Stanfield out. But feel free to discuss anyone from any season in the comments.
Oh, sorry. Law Enforcement/Fire Dept.
The people on the street who deal constantly with the crash test dummies and middle management clowns. Clean up their messes and yet usually have a family members among them. I could tell some stories…
Mala, one of the beautiful things about The Wire is that it describes what I mentioned at the end of this piece, how the three categories extend to just about every organization out there in the legit world too.
Fire Departments and Law Enforcements also have their crash test dummies and middle management and players issues. I know the middle managers in LE/Fire often complain about how orders coming down from the top dogs make it harder for them in recruiting and overseeing the right types of people in the crash dummy categories. For example because of diversity initiatives a lot of middle management in fire departments complain about pressure to lower testing requirements, which lowers the level of crash test dummy they can recruit. In The Wire they show the conflict between the three categories occurring in law enforcement, especially regarding the implementation of Compstat. Top dogs force middle management to live and die by CompStat numbers, and thanks to this pressure from above, middle managers force dysfunctional decisions onto their crash dummy officers in order to meet the required numbers.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CompStat
Checkout ribbonfarm.com
He divides office workers into Sociopaths, Clueless and Losers.
http://www.ribbonfarm.com/2009.....he-office/
A bit different from your view (he is more dismissive of the middle layer) but then, the extra honesty (about the brutality of the relationships) inside a criminal organisation might eliminate the need for a clueless layer.
I think you nailed it. I think the more bureaucratic the organization, like big offices and government agencies, the more middle management becomes a final stop for the mediocre and uninspired who exist simply to perpetuate the status quo regardless of how dysfunctional, frustrate innovation, kiss ass and try not to rock the boat.
I’m reading the ribbonfarm link now. Good stuff. A lot of overlap with my three categories.
I get where you are coming from about the mirroring within the seemingly opposite organizations. Not sure I entirely buy that within LE/Fire, non-ranking personnel=crash test dummy, but I’ll go with it for now. I believe it’s more fluid than you think and sometimes you find a non-ranking person who is the one of the best in a dept.
I am intimately familiar with CompStat and I think many ‘middle-management’ LEO’s/etc.in real life are more self-aware and creative when it comes too out-smarting the ‘players’ than you are giving credit for here.
I recall a conversation I had recently with a LEO family memeber about “testing” in our jobs. Much was said about how passing the “written test” is almost irrelevent to our effectiveness on the street, but how you need to “play their game” and it is a “hoop to jump through” to show you can “play politics” so they can document their “standards”, which interestingly runs alongside what you were saying about recruitment complaints.
Mala – I reread my original post and realized I made a flaw in how I wrote it. I made it seem like “crash dummies” are all stupid. That was a mistake. Many crash dummies are dumb, many are just unmotivated just due to low morale and disillusionment with the organization in general and/or higher ups in particular. This disillusionment often feeds into the perception among higher ups that all crash dummies are stupid and causes them to treat them even moreso like children. This however doesn’t mean that all crash dummies are dumb. What I mean by crash dummies is primarily two things:
1. They are treated as useful but expendable
2. They have no voice
Also, especially in law enforcement and fire where many of the ranks are young and male, it isn’t so much a factor of being stupid as it is being young and male and therefore more testosterone driven, more impulsive and less averse to risk. I have a cousin and a friend who both joined the force older than the average age (in their 30s) and expressed their similar frustrations with their fellow rookies, who were often a decade or more younger. They weren’t dumb so much as they were just your average young knuckleheaded guys.
Anyway, I rewrote the crash test dummy section to correct my original poor language and reflect that crash test dummy isn’t necessarily synonymous with literally being dumb.
I don’t think CompStat is a bad thing, just that it can be misapplied when in the hands of clueless higher ups and middle managers who just want numbers at all costs. I still think the good outweighs the harm, but many people learn to game the system, then the higher up catch on and learn to outgame the gamers and then the gamers adapt accordings as a counter-response and you end up with a ton of energy diverted to internal politics that could be better focused elsewhere. But this is true of most organizations and their politics, not just law enforcement.
The lowering of standards I was talking about was specifically in fire departments, both physical and written. I know little about law enforcement written testing standards, so I’ll take your word on it. I was talking about FD cases like below:
http://www.city-journal.org/ht.....-23hm.html
Here’s something you may find interesting from one of the writers of The Wire, Ed Burns, who was a former Baltimore Police Detective. He was discussing how the current generation of police crash dummies were getting sloppier, more impulsive and lazier than previous generations, but his blame for it was on the idea that the crash dummies in the criminal world were getting sloppier, more impulsive and lazier. Because the criminals were getting sloppier and dumber and more impulsive, they became easier to catch and the new cops increasingly were allowing themselves to get sloppier, dumber and more impulsive in response. The idea was that a hunter is only as good as the level of prey he has experience with. He said it became a source of frustration with new recruits, trying to instill the same caliber of street smarts and excellence as previous generations in this context of the current class of street criminal.
When I first read this post, it got me remembering how defined by violence our lives were, back in the pre-Giuliani-New York area, since I also grew up there (and P.R.).
The line between LEO/fire and criminals was blurry because:
a)Many criminals and LEO/Fire are all related to one another, either by blood or marriage.
b)Many LEO/Fire were still operating w/ the same street violence rules on-duty and off-duty that “Sometimes you gotta get what’s comin’ to ya.” I vividly remember a backyard brawl that some firefighters got into over a card game/picnic with some cops and a certain persons ear getting ripped, faces stomped on,baseball bats came out-very Sopranos-esque, in my opinion.
c)Most of the above folks tended to come from similiar circumstances and the same neighborhoods (which is why you see such a conservative streak in Fire and Cops-the attitude of-”If I could manage to make it without being a low-life criminal, why can’t they?”)
BTW- Last 2009 stats I heard from NYPD is they have a department that’s 47.5% Caucasian, 28.9% Hispanic, 17.9% African American, and 5.5% Asian compared to a city that is 44% Caucasian, 27% Hispanic, 25% African American, and 11% Asian
[...] aka Ricky Raw – “The Three Tracks: The Sopranos and The Wire“, “Double Standards Revisited: A Thought [...]
Mala, I know exactly what you mean! Some of the worst brawlers and troublemakers I knew from my youth, when I caught up with them as adults they were now cops. But it makes a warped kind of sense.
Also, this is a story that came out today that I found relevant to our discussion. This used to be my home precinct too!
http://www.nydailynews.com/new.....crime.html
Great post! I am just starting out in community management/marketing media and trying to discover how to do it well – resources like this article are incredibly useful. As our organization is dependent in the US, it?s all a bit new to us. The example above is something that I worry about as nicely, how to show your personal genuine enthusiasm and write about the fact that your product is useful in that case.
Those aren’t the only dumb criminals. Dr Kotarac was found lodged in her boyfriend’s chimney. She tried to break into his home, and failed miserably.