Dealing Crack: The Social World of Streetcorner Selling

by Bruce A. Jacobs, James F. Short Jr. (Foreword by)

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.

Genres: Sociology

172 pages, Paperback

First published April 29, 1999

Reviews

[Chris Chaos · Rating 5 out of 5]

A very interesting read by ethnographic writer Bruce Jacobs who interviewed the people in the book and researched in person the mentality and social hierarchy of street corner dealers.

[Johan · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book is about the world of streetcorner selling of crack cocaine, specifically in St. Louis where the author made his fieldwork. The so called crack epidemic of the late 1980's and 90's in the US was much of an inner city phenomenon and largely limited to the socially disadvantaged Afro-American populations of these areas.

This research is interesting as it is based largely on symbolic interactionism with many references to Erving Goffman. This means that Jacobs views the crack selling with a focus on the face to face interaction that takes place, on the one hand between seller and buyer and on the other between the sellers and the police. One gets an interesting inside look at how the transactions are taking place, what kind of tricks are used to fool either parts.

Highly recommended book if you're into the sociology of drugs but also very useful if you plan to do fieldwork in "dangerous" places, there is a lot of useful tricks to pick up on that matter.

[Daminica · Rating 4 out of 5]

I liked the way Jacobs describes the outbreak of Crack in the 80's to the early 90's. Such a shame how relatable the mentality was then to now.