Frank Sheeran, the protagonist of Scorsese's The Irishman, begins as what he seems destined to be: a trucker who delivers quarters of beef, a war veteran with no horizon beyond his route. But a chance encounter with the boss Russell Bufalino opens a door to another life —one in which a man like him, willing and discreet, can become useful, respected and needed—. Sheeran does not fall into the mob by accident nor out of purely economic desperation: he chooses it because he anticipates in it something his life as a trucker would never give him. For differential anticipation, it is a textbook case: people offend for the reward —above all of identity and belonging— that they foresee obtaining.
// The theoryThe future the family offers
Daniel Glaser held that a person commits a crime when they anticipate more reward from it than from conformity, and that this reward is not only money: it is status, belonging and identity. Sheeran embodies that equation with almost didactic clarity. His honest life offers him a wage and anonymity; the mob offers him a role —the trusted man, the one who "paints houses"—, a family that takes him in and protects him, and the respect of men everyone fears. When he weighs the two lives, Sheeran anticipates that the second will give him everything the first denies: a place in the world, a usefulness, an identity. He does not calculate a concrete haul; he calculates who he can become. That is differential anticipation in action —the choice of crime as a bet on a future and an image of oneself—.
Belonging as anticipated reward
What makes Sheeran such a pure case is that his dominant reward is not greed, but belonging. Glaser insisted that purely economic theories of crime fall short because they ignore social and identity rewards, and Sheeran makes them visible: what he anticipates from the mob is ceasing to be nobody —an interchangeable trucker— to become someone within a brotherhood of powerful men. His almost dog-like loyalty to Bufalino and Hoffa is not explained by money; it is explained because those men gave him a place, and that place is the reward he anticipated and pursued all his life. The theory's lesson is uncomfortable: for a man without an identity of his own, the promise of belonging to something —even a criminal organization— can weigh more than any moral consideration or any risk. Sheeran was not seduced by wealth; he was seduced by the possibility of mattering. And that anticipation —that of finally meaning something to someone— is the hardest to deter, because it does not compete with money, but with emptiness.
Get the map of theories for free
Subscribe to the criminal archive —one case a week, no spam— and I'll send you The map of theories: the great currents of criminology on a single sheet.
// The subjectThe price of the anticipated reward
Sheeran's tragedy, which the film develops with desolate slowness, is that the anticipated reward is revealed to be false just when he has already paid the full price for it. He anticipated belonging and ends in absolute solitude: he kills Hoffa —the only true friend he ever had— out of loyalty to the "family," and that same family then leaves him completely alone, forgotten in a nursing home, unable even to get his daughter to speak to him. The identity he pursued —the trusted man, the one who belongs— dissolves in old age and reveals what it always was: not a family, but a usefulness discarded once it stopped serving. Sheeran is fully responsible for every murder he committed, and the anticipation that guided him does not exonerate him. But his story illustrates the crack in the theory itself: he spent his life pursuing an anticipated reward that, when he finally looked back, had never truly existed.
Frank Sheeran
// The crackNeither "forced by circumstances," nor a cold monster
The crack with Sheeran is to read him as a man simply dragged along by circumstances —"he had no choice," "it was the only way out for a laborer"—. Differential anticipation refutes this: Sheeran chose, again and again, the life he anticipated as more rewarding, and that choice included killing a friend. The opposite crack is to reduce him to a soulless hitman, a cold executioner. The film resists both readings: it shows an ordinary man, neither monster nor victim, who made decisions that were understandable in their logic —pursuing belonging and respect— and monstrous in their consequences. The honest reading holds both things at once: understanding what Sheeran anticipated (a place, an identity) without using that understanding to erase his responsibility. Explaining the bet does not settle the account of the dead he left behind by winning it —and losing it—.
That Sheeran ends up alone, talking to a priest and to a recorder because he has no one left, is The Irishman's answer to the anticipation that moved him: the reward of belonging he pursued all his life was the one an organization that valued him only while he was useful could give him least of all. He anticipated a family; he bought a solitude.
The anticipation that competes with emptiness
Sheeran matters because he shows the hardest form of criminal anticipation to prevent: the one that does not seek money, but belonging. A man who anticipates wealth can be deterred with costs; a man who anticipates finally mattering to someone pits crime against the emptiness of his honest life, and there punishment loses almost all its force. The lesson for prevention is that it is not enough to make crime more costly: one must offer, before the bet is closed, another source of belonging and identity —a trade, a community, a respected role—. Sheeran did not need a greater threat; he needed an honest life that offered him what the mob promised: to be someone. His story teaches that behind many who "choose" crime there is no greed, but a hunger to mean something, and that a society that wants to prevent crime must ask itself whom it is leaving with no anticipated reward other than the one crime offers.
Three key takeaways
- Frank Sheeran is differential anticipation in its purest state: an anonymous trucker who serves the mob because he anticipates in it a role ("I paint houses"), belonging and respect —the identity and the place his honest life denied him—.
- His dominant reward is not greed, but belonging: he chose crime to stop being nobody and become someone within a "family." That anticipation —that of finally mattering— is the hardest to deter, because it competes with emptiness.
- Neither "forced by circumstances" nor a cold monster: he chose again and again the life he anticipated as better, and he is responsible for his dead. The reward turned out to be false —he ends in absolute solitude—: he anticipated a family and bought an abandonment.
Sources · further reading
- Glaser, D. (1978). Crime in Our Changing Society. Holt, Rinehart and Winston.
- Brandt, C. (2004). I Heard You Paint Houses. Steerforth Press.
- Sutherland, E. H. (1947). Principles of Criminology. Lippincott.
Case-file questionsFrequently asked questions
¿Quién es Frank Sheeran?
Frank Sheeran («El Irlandés») es un villano de El Irlandés, analizado en KRIMINIS con la lente de la criminología. He was a trucker who delivered meat.
¿Por qué Frank Sheeran (El Irlandés) se convierte en villano?
Frank Sheeran and differential anticipation: the ordinary man who serves the mob because he anticipates in it the belonging, the role and the identity —"I paint houses"— that his honest life never gave him.
¿Qué teoría criminológica explica a Frank Sheeran?
El caso de Frank Sheeran se analiza desde la Anticipación Diferencial. Differential anticipation (Glaser) holds that people offend for the reward they anticipate —above all, of identity—. Frank Sheeran, from The Irishman, is the perfect example: an anonymous trucker who serves the mob because he anticipates in it something his life did not offer —a role ("I paint houses"), belonging to a family and the respect of powerful men—. He chooses crime not out of greed, but for the identity and the place he expects to obtain.
