Jimmy "the Gent" Conway, one of the pivots of Scorsese's Goodfellas, is the charismatic gangster who takes the young Henry Hill under his wing. His function in the film —and his criminological interest— is not that of a mere thief: it is that of a mentor who teaches Henry, and the viewer, to desire the life of the mob. Conway doesn't recruit by offering money up front or by threatening; he recruits by showing a future: how he'll be respected, how he'll have cash in his pocket, how he'll never again have to wait in line or wait for a table. For differential anticipation, Conway is the agent who manufactures the anticipated reward in others —he teaches you to anticipate the gangster's identity as something desirable—.
// The theoryTeaching someone to anticipate an identity
Glaser explained that differential anticipation does not arise on its own: it is learned from the people one associates with, who teach you what to expect from crime. Conway is that teacher. What he passes on to Henry is not so much robbery techniques as an expectation: the image of the life awaiting him if he enters the business. "Never waiting in line for anything" is not a criminal instruction; it is an anticipation of status. Conway teaches Henry to look at his future and see, instead of a mediocre job, a life of respect, power and belonging. The theory underlines this point: the reward that drives crime is not only in the head of the offender, it is cultivated socially, and there are figures —like Conway— whose role is precisely to make the criminal life seem the most gratifying of all possible anticipations.
The anticipated reward is manufactured
Conway illustrates that differential anticipation has an active side: someone teaches you to anticipate. The reward Henry expects from the mob —respect, money, the feeling of being "one of us"— was not invented by him; Conway showed it to him, day by day, as a tangible and desirable future. This is the mechanism by which criminal subcultures reproduce: they don't recruit only with money or coercion, but by selling an anticipation, an image of the life and identity the newcomer will have. Conway is persuasive because he doesn't promise loot, he promises being someone: feared, respected, free of the humiliations of ordinary life. The lesson of the theory is that fighting this recruitment doesn't consist only in increasing sentences, but in dismantling the anticipation being sold —showing the real underside of that life (prison, betrayal, death) and, above all, offering the kid another source of respect and identity—. Because as long as figures like Conway are the only ones offering someone an anticipation of dignity, they will keep recruiting.
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// The subjectThe salesman who also believes his own product
What's interesting about Conway is that he's not a cynic selling a lie he doesn't believe: he himself lives the anticipation he teaches. He carries himself with the charisma of someone convinced that the gangster's life is, truly, the best —respected, generous, "the Gent"—. That authenticity makes him more effective as a recruiter: Henry doesn't see a manipulator, he sees a man who seems to have obtained exactly what he promises. But the film, without underlining it, lets the price show: Conway is also deeply paranoid and lethal, capable of having his own accomplices killed after the big Lufthansa heist so as not to split the take or leave loose ends. The glamorous identity he sells conceals a bedrock of violence and absolute distrust. Conway is responsible for his crimes and for having pushed others down the same path; his charisma doesn't soften that responsibility, it aggravates it —because his talent was making desirable what destroyed those who followed him—.
Jimmy Conway
// The fractureNeither glamour nor caricature
The great fracture with Conway —and with all of Goodfellas— is that the film is so good at selling the anticipation that the viewer falls for it: for much of the running time, mob life seems genuinely irresistible, and that is the risk of glamorizing. Scorsese knows it and dismantles it in the final third, when that same anticipation rots into paranoia, cocaine and betrayal. The opposite fracture is reducing Conway to a cardboard villain, losing what he teaches about how recruitment really works —not with obvious evil, but with charisma and a promise of the future—. The honest reading holds both faces: understanding why the anticipation Conway sells is seductive (to explain why it works) without forgetting where it leads (so as not to buy it). Understanding the recruiter is the only way to immunize against his offer.
That the life Conway paints as paradise ends, for almost all who embraced it, in the grave or in informing, is the film's answer to its own spell: the anticipation the recruiter sells is real as desire and false as promise. He was selling a future he himself would never come to inhabit in peace.
Dismantling the anticipation being sold
Conway matters because he personifies the social link of differential anticipation: it is not enough for crime to offer rewards, someone is needed to teach you to anticipate them as desirable. And that has a direct consequence for prevention: the best way to protect a kid like Henry is not only to punish the crime, but to compete with the anticipation that his particular Conway sells him. If the only figure offering a teenager an image of a future with respect, money and belonging is the neighborhood gangster, the criminal anticipation will win by default of a rival. The lesson is that prevention runs through offering alternative recruiters —mentors, trades, communities— who sell an anticipation of identity just as powerful and far more real. Conway teaches that crime spreads like a desire for the future, and that a desire can only be fought with another desire, not with a threat alone.
Three key takeaways
- Jimmy Conway is the agent who manufactures differential anticipation in others: mentor to the young Henry Hill, he doesn't teach him to rob but to desire the gangster's identity —respect, easy money, "never waiting in line for anything"—.
- He shows the active, social side of the theory: the anticipated reward is cultivated, sold. Criminal subcultures recruit not with coercion, but by offering a desirable image of future life and identity. Conway is effective because he himself lives what he sells.
- Neither glamour nor caricature: the anticipation he sells is seductive (that's why it works) and false (it leads to betrayal and death). Preventing it requires competing with that anticipation —offering other mentors and futures—, not just increasing sentences.
Sources · further reading
- Glaser, D. (1978). Crime in Our Changing Society. Holt, Rinehart and Winston.
- Pileggi, N. (1985). Wiseguy. Simon & Schuster.
- Akers, R. L. (1998). Social Learning and Social Structure. Northeastern University Press.
Case-file questionsFrequently asked questions
¿Quién es Jimmy Conway?
Jimmy Conway («El Caballero») es un villano de Uno de los nuestros, analizado en KRIMINIS con la lente de la criminología. He doesn't recruit with threats or money up front.
¿Por qué Jimmy Conway (El Caballero) se convierte en villano?
Jimmy Conway and differential anticipation: the mentor who doesn't teach you how to rob, but how to anticipate the gangster's life —respect, easy money, never waiting in line for anything— as a desirable identity.
¿Qué teoría criminológica explica a Jimmy Conway?
El caso de Jimmy Conway se analiza desde la Anticipación Diferencial. Differential anticipation (Glaser) holds that people offend because of the reward they anticipate from crime. Jimmy Conway, from Goodfellas, is the agent who manufactures that anticipation in others: mentor to the young Henry Hill, he doesn't teach him techniques, he teaches him to desire the gangster's identity —respect, easy money, never having to wait in line—. He embodies how the criminal subculture recruits by selling a future and an image of oneself.
