Positive Sociology

How did this guy become famous!? I was channel surfing last night, when I happened to stumble upon a pretty good 3-hour block of reality programming.  Amidst the glut of bad reality tv starring Guy Fieri (e.g. Minute to Win It; Diner's, Drive-Ins, Dives), I found 3 very entertaining reality-based shows on MSNBC.  Below are some short summaries followed by some thoughts: 1) The first show was a made-for-TV documentary called "Inside a Crackhouse."  The premise for this documentary was simple: Police outfit a crackhouse with hidden cameras; viewers get to see the inner-workings of a crackhouse.  While much of the documentary focuses on the organization and eventual demise of a Chicago-area drug-dealing ring called the "Titanic Stones," there are also small snippets of the film that show how the fall of this drug gang has impacted family members and friends of dealers.  For example, one interview features the mother of the gang's leader talking about her...

What do kung fu masters, inner-city armed robbers, and Jose Canseco have in common?  More than you might think... My new book project , Wounded: The Aftermath of Gun Violence , is an ethnography of gunshot victims.  To say the least, this research has lead me to some pretty interesting areas of the city.  In the past 1.5 years, I've spent time with numerous young men who have been shot in armed robberies.  While many are random victims of gun violence, some victims were themselves offenders in the past. One of the victim/offenders in my study, Paul, was a former stick-up boy who used to rob drunken patrons stumbling home from bars and nite clubs.  While hanging out near his old haunts, Paul has taken me to different areas of the city in which he used to wait for the unsuspecting passerby.  One such spot is a shaded awning that wraps around the side of a low-income apartment building.  Using the natural cover provide by the awning and the lack of li...