Dealing Crack: The Social World of Streetcorner Selling

by Bruce A. Jacobs

Book Overview

During the 1980s, addiction to crack cocaine escalated at an alarming rate. As the demand for crack grew, so did the economic opportunities for entrepreneurial street dealers, who developed criminal underground networks for the supply and retail sale of the high-profit substance. While crack cocaine use has since plateaued and is on the decline, hard-core dealers persist in selling the increasingly unprofitable drug in a high-risk, competitive street market.

Bruce A. Jacobs bases his study on dangerous field research conducted in one of the most socially distressed and impoverished neighborhoods in St. Louis. Drawing on no-holds-barred interviews with active dealers, as well as on his own eyewitness observations of transactions and encounters with police, Jacobs captures the crack business as it actually operates on the streets.

He examines the underlying motivations for selling crack, describes the complex and intricate social organization of dealing, and explores how dealers protect transactions from law enforcement, undercover police, and criminal predators. Quoting extensively from his conversations with offenders, he conveys much of the fear and aura surrounding the process and lifestyle of crack cocaine dealing.

This provocative volume is appropriate for a variety of courses in criminal justice and social problems and gives general readers an inside look at one of America's most troubling problems.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 1555533876
• ISBN13: 9781555533878
• Release Date: April 1999
• Publisher: Northeastern University Press
• Length: 172 Pages
• Weight: 0.55 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.5" x 5.5" x 8.2"
• Grade Range: Postsecondary and higher

Customer Reviews

Stories and Insight

Bruce Jacobs has produced two books -- Dealing Crack (1999) and Robbing Drug Dealers (2000) -- that accurately portray and insightfully dissect the world of drug trade. Perhaps the most competent judges of criminological research are criminals, and the ideas and stories found in Jacobs' work would likely provide practical as well as theoretical insights for both drug dealers and drug robbers.

"The Art of War for Drug-Dealers"

I have read a copy of this book and recommend it to anyone interested in drug-dealing. I am tempted to give this book the nickname -- "The Art of War for Drug-Dealers," but this idea is over stating my case. A few quotes follow: "Composure under fire is critical, no matter how intense the scrutiny. Equanimity can preempt police suspicion, while its absense can do the opposite. To look suspicious is bad in itself, but to try to cover it up is worse." "The 'don't mess with me,' 'crazy' reputation is said to provide street crack sellers a measure of inoculation from victimization. Bourgois calls it a 'personal logic of violence in the streets overarching culture of terror.'" "Blood cancels all debts." "Active, street-level crack markets are saturated and increasingly unprofitable." "As an organizational system, open-air selling has become a "distant third" to sellers working in crack houses and selers working with beepers who meet customers at preassigned locations." "If history is any indication, it is not a question of if a new drug will emerge onto this volitile scene but when -- and what form it will take. The decline of one drug often signals the incubation of another."

Great book!

Great book about street level crack dealing. It is also a marvelous study in field research and being 'on the other side' of the law.