The life of drug dealers and prostitutes are not much different from the lives of others. Drug dealers and prostitutes spend their free time out and about with friends, at home with their families, or alone possibly reading a book. They wake up every day, go to work, and enjoy their free time just like the rest of us. The only difference is their line of work. The difference being that their work is not necessarily legal. With that being said, there are certain things that need to be balanced and/or kept in order, just like with any other job, to make the job bearable and enjoyable. The manner in which participants in criminal enterprise such as drug dealing and prostitution utilize violence and manage their identities is vital to not only their success, but also their personal safety. How well they are able to deploy both violence and identity has a direct correlation to their ability to control their immediate environment and maximize profits.
Drug Dealers
Being a successful drug dealer is all about forming an identity amongst the customers, the community, and the competitors. To rank amongst the top drug dealers in any particular area one must broadcast power and status. The Paradise Bloods for example, who are ran by Pit have been successful for years. Their success has come in large part to what Pit calls keeping “the balance”. In order to keep the balance, Pit believes he must make money, stay out of jail, and never get punked. To maximize the money being made, The Paradise Bloods participate in what is referred to in the streets as “flossing”. This is a way of using the internet and social media to form an identity in the streets. Flossing consist of posting pictures of money, drugs, and labels. This form of flossing is done mainly for the customers. Drug users see these as a form of advertisement where they recognize the labels and recall hearing about the particular brand. Expanding the brand leads to a more customers and recognition in a larger range of locations. The pictures of the actual drugs themselves are a visual preview of the quality of the product, and the pictures of the money are simply to make users aware that this is who others are buying from, and that they should be to. It is important to mention that while they do advertise online, the drug dealers being referred to do not sell online. That is a completely different type of drug dealer in a completely different drug market. As stated The Digital Underground: Here’s How You Can Buy Drugs on Social Media Right Now, his is mainly because “there is no reliable method for either party to establish a positive reputation” (Ferguson), so they tend to stay away from selling online. Staying out of jail; while it seems pretty obvious, is one of the more intricate aspects of Pit’s balance. This is due to the fact that you must balance your identity amongst the community with your identity amongst fellow drug dealers and rival drug dealers in the streets. To fellow and rival drug dealers you must give off the impression that you are ruthless and not to be dealt with. At the same time, you must be viewed as a well-mannered and civil man in the community. Having a good reputation in the community lessens suspicion of illegal activity and prevents people from turning you in to the police when they are aware of your illegal activity. Drug dealers are known to be active parts of the communities they live in; often participating in community held events such as fundraisers and carnivals. This is not to say that they only patriciate in these events to deceive the community. It could be the case that they actually enjoy and willfully participate because as previously stated: dealing drugs does not make you a bad person, and is simply your job, or way of making a living. To avoid being punked, certain flossing can be directed at rival dealers in different gangs. Dealers post pictures of their crews in order to broadcast how “deep” they are. Deep, meaning the amount of people in the crew that you would have to deal with if you were ever in any altercations with the crew. Videos of violent acts are put up online to showcase what would happen if someone was to cross the Paradise Bloods. All this is done to form an identity and enhance their reputation with other gangs in the area. The tougher they make themselves out to be, the less other gangs are willing to confront them.
Violence seems to decrease in frequency when reputation goes up. In a sense, dealers use certain violence to avoid more violence, publicizing their acts of violence to scare rivals in to not messing with them. however, their primary objective is actually to avoid it in certain situations. Being violent in the wrong place at the wrong time can harm the reputation they worked so hard to build in the community, in turn putting them at a higher risk of being investigated and possibly arrested. Being known as too violent can diminish status not only with the community, but also with customers. Being known as too violent will scare away customers. Customers wouldn’t want to do business with a group that explodes over small incidents. There are certain offenses that require drastic retaliation while there are others that require minimal to no retaliation at all. This goes for incidents with customers and also rival dealers. For instance, there was a situation where a couple of kids not associated with Pit or his crew were selling drugs using their logo (a Pitbull). Not only was that money being lost, but there was no telling what the quality of the drugs those kids were selling was. If it didn’t meet the standard that Pit’s customers were accustomed to receiving, they would question him, and possibly move on to a new dealer. Pit then finds out that the kids are associated with a rival group, complicating the situation even more. So Pit was faced with the tough task of deciding how to deal with these kids. Doing too much would spark outrage in the community, especially due to the fact that they were children, and not doing enough would give off the impression to other groups that Pit’s crew could be walked all over. In this particular situation no violence was used because he was dealing with children but rest assured, his point was made.
Prostitutes
The balance between work life and personal life is important in many lines of work, but for prostitutes it is especially important. These ladies work extremely hard to separate the two different parts of her life. More so for their personal well-being than anything else. This plays a huge part in the identity of woman who work in brothels as prostitutes. Outside the brothels they are one person and inside they are another. This is not to say that they behave any differently, but they do go by another name. This is so that nobody knows that they work in a brothel. One might ask, wouldn’t the clients be able to identify them in the streets and point them out to someone? While this is true, people that go to brothels usually don’t want others knowing they do so the likelihood of them pointing out a prostitute are very slim. People who go or work in brothels are in some sense a part of their own underground community. However, for those that are not part of this community, they are never to suspect a thing out of these women. At Walter’s brothel in NYC; when coming in the work, the ladies are to dress casually and respectfully. They are never allowed to linger around the building where they work and they can never enter the building in big groups. This is all so that their fake identities are never revealed, and their real identities in the communities are not ruined. That is the easy part for these women. The more complicated part is balancing their work and personal identities in their own mind. Nothing that these women use in the brothel ever makes it back to their homes. The lingerie that they wear stays and is washed in the brothel. Also, the make sure to not use any of the products that they use in the brothels in their homes. This includes particular brands of condoms, hand soaps, Febreeze. As seen in the Secret Diary of a Call Girl, prostitutes will even go so far as to use different brands of make up at work than they would regularly use at home. These are all things that trigger the women and remind them of the brothel. There is even a certain way that the women in Walter’s brothel have to fold their towels at work. None of the women fold their towels at home this way, as a form of identity practices. They also differentiate the sex in their mind. The sex that they have at work does is exactly that, work. They don’t necessarily enjoy it like some might believe. On the contrary, they actually want to get the clients in and out of there as quickly as possible. The motto at Walter’s brothel is actually. Get em Up. Get em off. Get em out.
Violence is not really much of an issue for prostitutes. They are protected by the managers that work in the brothels with them. Most of the altercations that prostitutes deal with, if any, are with their fellow prostitutes in the same brothel. For the most part, the ladies try to avoid having issues because that would make for a complicated work space. Most of the trouble comes from breaking the rules in the brothel like, not wearing stocking, not being clean, and performing prohibited acts during a session with a client. The only other time a prostitute might need to be violent at work is to protect themselves from a violent client. But once again, that is only until the managers are able to reach them. When the rules are followed, the workplace is bearable and everyone gets along. In turn there is no need for violence at work.
Balancing work and out of work identity is something most jobs require to some extent. Being able to separate the two allows drug dealers and prostitutes to make a living while also being just another person in the community. While prostitutes don’t generally encounter much violence, the drug dealers only do if it is absolutely necessary, usually trying to avoid it hen possible. These are two examples of criminal enterprises that regular people participate in while maintaining relatively normal lives outside of work. However, to be successful they must master issues with identity on a day-to-day basis, and issues with violence whenever a problem presents itself.