Situational or Generalized Violence in Drug Dealing Networks

Abstract

It has been contended that women's participation in drug markets has had a tremendous impact on female involvement in nondrug crimes, especially such violent offenses as robbery and assault. Systemic violence in drug selling, however, may be spuriously related to other etiological factors in violence and crime commission, rather than a function of social processes unique to drug selling. Violence within and apart from the context of drug dealing is compared for women involved in various types of drug distribution activities. Life history interviews were conducted with 156 female drug sellers from two New York City neighborhoods. The findings suggest that violence among drug sellers, including females, appears to reflect the concurrence of two processes: the self-selection of people who routinely use violence in their broader social and economic interactions, and the neighborhood itself, in which violence is taught, practiced, and maintained as a way of negotiating the social realities of street and domestic life.