Organizations often put new employees through shared trauma to force a feeling of comraderie and submission to management so I don’t see why gangs would be any different.
Steven Hassan was a former member of the Moonies cult who obtained a PhD in psychology after being deprogrammed and has written books on the psychology of cult recruiting. Interestingly, he points out that the same tactics are often used by organizations that aren’t cults. I highly recommend reading one of his books!
Never thought about that before, but now I’m curious: what exactly makes a gang not a cult?
So like nursing where during clinicals you have to do a 48 on 24 off and 48 on and on during rotation?
Oh man - health care is absolutely guilty of this. Residents and nurses go through hell to gain their professional credentials.
I’m not clinical, but I worked in medical IT off and on.
The shit I would hear from clinical staff.
Had a senior surgeon call me because his application was frozen. Cool, cool, lets get that going - wait - you’re what - palpating a child’s heart to keep it beating in rhythm? There are back ups upon back ups for anything IT related in that scenario. Don’t call your overnight helpdesk with that shit, have your nurse write it down on paper. Fuck.
Most traumatic IT call I’ve ever had. Didn’t even care to solve his IT issue, just focused on patient care. My 20 something ass with a few years behind the desk told him to focus on the patient’s LIFE first and foremost, we can talk later.
Always great for an interview question though - how do you respond under stress? Well, lol…
Remember that most gangs are made up of stupid as shit 12-18 year olds. Like really, gang members are young. These are preteens and teens with guns and weapons. They’re fucking stupid.
How do you condition someone to be loyal/obedient and not a liability? You haze them with the implication that a whole lot worse could happen, and then you test them. “You gotta promise not to tell anyone this, I’m trusting you” usually loosely translates to “I just told you something bogus and everyone is listening to see if you’re gonna spill the beans, and if so we’ll beat the everliving shit out of you until you learn”
Can’t speak to now, but 30 years ago? Yeah.
I would imagine it’s a multi-part solution:
You either are jumped in and prove yourself to be tough enough to roll with them, or you can’t tough it out but they’ve already beat you to a pulp once so ideally they’ve made their point and intimidated you out of speaking against them/talking to cops or trying out for rivals.
Full disclosure: I don’t have experience in this and am mostly speculating.
You seen Fight Club? Making them stand on the porch while they were hit and berated was part of the initiation. It showed they were committed. Similar thoughts to gangs. Unsure how prevalent it still is.
