Violence of the Streets or the Suburbs: Suburban Grown Marijuana Dealers Working in Urban Environments

• In Event: Poster Session

Abstract

Since the publication of Anderson’s Code of the Streets (1994) much research has been conducted on the dynamics and operations of street level drug markets in urban environments. Recent research has begun to look at how the operational dynamics of drug dealing are conformed to the environment in which these actions are conducted and the actors who carry out the formal transactions. Specifically in Jacques and Wright Code of the Suburbs (2012) the authors highlight the lack of violence in suburban drug dealing that is brutally observable in its urban counterpart. The present research is investigating and attempting to understand the nature and degree to which non-violent suburban drug dealers incorporate violence into their conflict resolution repertoire in relation to their own victimization steaming from their activities selling drugs, primarily marijuana and its derivative products. Through semi-structured qualitative interviews with current and former drug dealers that moved from the suburban to the urban market the manner in which violence can be drawn into a pattern of behaviors from an environment and its rules can begin to be understood.

Author

• Charles Hogan, Georgia State University