How Did Henry Hill Influence The Use Of Aggression?

Sabela Burleson
Vierra
SOC 342
September 27, 2014
Wiseguy
In a society with no privileges, a life of status and wealth was just outside of the window for Henry Hill. When Hill was only eleven years old he began a life of crime. It all started at a cabstand located across the street from Henry Hill’s small three-bedroom apartment which housed his parents and six other siblings. Henry’s father worked as an electrician and struggled to keep food on the table and a roof over the head of the family, Hill yearned for something better. He looked outside his window at the men at the cabstand. The men with their luxurious cars and long coats with pockets full of money, men who seemed to get away with everything, wiseguys. Henry longed to be one of
These men were set apart because of their inherent need for violence. Learning theory recognizes that people have the ability to behave aggressively but whether or not they use that aggression is learned. Certain factors that influence the use of aggression are external reinforcement, vicarious reinforcement and self-regulatory mechanisms. Hill was taught that aggression and violence are tools for men to get what thy want. He receives external reinforcement through goods that he is able to sell. He started early with sandwiches, then moved on to higher profiting contraband like cigarets and cocaine. Status through violence provided the second element in required for learning theory, Hill stated that “their eagerness to attack and the fact that people were aware of their strutting brutality were the key to their power, the common knowledge that they would unquestionably take a life ironically gave them life”(Pileggi). The reputations of the mobsters violence gave them
It meant power among people who had no power. It meant perks in a working-class neighborhood that had no privileges. To be a wiseguy was to own the world. I dreamed about being a wiseguy the way other kids dreamed about being doctors or movie stars or firemen or ballplayers” (Pileggi). From a young age Henry Hill knew he wanted more for himself than what his father had. He had no desire to be stuck in a menial job, living paycheck to paycheck. Hill wanted to be somebody, he wanted wealth and power, he wanted to be a wiseguy. The mafia provided Henry with everything that he wanted and more. However, it also took everything from him. For fear of being murdered by the people whom he had once called family, Hill became a witness for the FBI and was placed in witness protection in exchange for his testimony against affluent members of the Italian mafia. Henry had spent 25 years in the mob, since he was eleven years old running errands for the gangsters at the cabstand he learned how to make a living scheming, hustling and stealing. With education only the mob could provide, Henry had dismissed the idea of living within the brackets of a lawful society. “And now all that is over, and that’s the hardest part. Today everything is very different. No more action. I have to wait around like everyone else. I’m an average nobody. I get to live the rest of my life like a