A Conceptual Framework for Operationalizing the Relationship between Violence and Drug Market Stability

Abstract

The existence of a relationship between violence and drug market operation and activity has been well established in the research literature. In recent years increasing attention has been given particularly to a hypothetical relationship between violence in a community and the relative stability of local drug markets. Unfortunately attempts to study this nexus have been hampered by an uncertainty in the literature about how to conceptualize the stability or instability of drug markets. In this paper, narrative data from interviews collected during a variety of studies of drugs and violence are used to conceptualize drug market stability. It is argued that any definition ofdrug market stability must consider both structural and interactional measures.