Dealing Crack: The Social World of Streetcorner Selling (Northeastern Series in Criminal Behavior) [Hardcover]

Bruce A. Jacobs (Author)

Book Description

Series: Northeastern Series in Criminal Behavior | Publication Date: April 29, 1999

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.

This starkly revealing book explores the crack cocaine trade from the candid perspectives of sellers themselves. 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.

Editorial Reviews

From Library Journal

This book is a report on Jacobs's ethnographic fieldwork among crack dealers in one neighborhood in St. Louis. The chapter subjects include motivation and social organization of dealers, predators in street drug sales, police (and undercover officers), and dealing in the current declining market, as well as background on the crack epidemic and research methodology. A criminology professor at the University of Missouri, St. Louis, Jacobs writes about his fascinating experiences with insight. By interviewing and studying dealers in their natural settings, he also runs into risky situations with potentially dangerous felons and some unfriendly police. Highly recommended for scholars, students, and professionals in criminal justice (and the interested general public), both for the methodology and for the carefully gathered detail on one group of offenders. There have been a number of recent studies on the patterns of selling, purchasing, and using crack and cocaine, including a study on selling crack in Harlem (Philippe T. Bourgois, In Search of Respect: Selling Crack in El Barrio, LJ 11/15/95). Jacobs's book is a valuable addition to that literature.?Mary Jane Brustman, SUNY at Albany Libs.
Copyright 1999 Reed Business Information, Inc.

About the Author

Bruce A. Jacobs is Assistant Professor of Criminology at the University of Missouri-St. Louis. James F. Short., is Professor of Sociology, Emeritus, at Washington State University. Gilbert Geis, editor of the Northeastern Series in Criminal Behavior, is Professor Emeritus in the Department of Criminology, Law and Society, at the University of California, Irvine.

Product Details

• Hardcover: 172 pages
• Publisher: Northeastern (April 29, 1999)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1555533884
• ISBN-13: 978-1555533885
• Product Dimensions: 8.5 x 5.8 x 0.5 inches
• Shipping Weight: 14.1 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 4.7 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (3 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #9,853,684 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Discover books, learn about writers, read author blogs, and more.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars "The Art of War for Drug-Dealers", May 9, 2006

By 

Larry M. Taylor (Madison, WI) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Dealing Crack: The Social World of Streetcorner Selling (Northeastern Series in Criminal Behavior) (Paperback)

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."

0 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Stories and Insight, May 27, 2007

By 

Scott T. Jacques (St. Louis, MO USA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Dealing Crack: The Social World of Streetcorner Selling (Northeastern Series in Criminal Behavior) (Paperback)

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.

0 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Great book!, August 29, 2001

By 

Martin Shure - See all my reviews

This review is from: Dealing Crack: The Social World of Streetcorner Selling (Northeastern Series in Criminal Behavior) (Paperback)

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.