The Roughnecks and the Saints by William J. Chambliss essays

The Roughnecks and the Saints by William J. Chambliss essays I think we all identify with either the Saints or the Roughnecks. We would all like to flaunt authority and play games with police, even if we are truly saints in real life. Even the perfect student may often wonder what it would be like to be a part of a group that deliberately goes somewhere with the intention of creating mischief for some unsuspecting person who happens along. The Saints were that kind of gang, and so were the Roughnecks. Maybe it is a teen-aged thing to want to do this. The Roughnecks just happened to be poorer than the Saints. That probably had always been a problem, even when they were younger, in that they could not buy the expensive clothes other kids had or afford the toys that the other kids brought to school, and it really rankled them and became a problem for them when they were in high school, when the couldnt con their parents into buying them a car or giving them the spending money they wanted, because their parents were not that well off. They had to make do with hanging out in public places nearer home, because it was easier to get to and less expensive. In public places, a young person can think of mischievous things to do when others arent aware, but it makes others suspicious of them when they are caught. As a matter of fact, if someone is labeled bad, they are likely to act bad in public to demonstrate their awareness of others labels on them. These roughnecks acted out their bad label by making lewd remarks to people on the stree t and creating problems around them in public. They played the opposite role of the good boy, even though, supposedly, the community punished them for being bad with the hopes that they would turn good. Two of the bad boys unexpectedly were re-labeled good when they received sports scholarships to college. One immediately began to live up to his label in dress and ma...