Why do affluent, upwardly mobile college students - who have everything to lose and little to gain - choose to sell drugs? Why do law enforcement officers largely overlook drug dealing on college campuses? With rich, lively details, A. Rafik Mohamed and Erik Fritsvold deliver unprecedented insight into the world of college drug dealers - and offer an important corrective to the traditional distorted view of the US drug trade as primarily involving poor minorities. Drawing on three years of fieldwork at a predominately white private university, their exceptional ethnography skillfully explores issues of deviance, race, and stratification in the US war on drugs. The book offers novel insight into the world of college drug dealers, exploring issues of deviance, race, and stratification in the US War on Drugs.
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Outstanding.... The authors uncover a world of drug dealing far removed from violent street-corner slinging and as entwined in the college experience as all-nighters and keg parties. Providing unparalleled insight into the war on drugs and an all-but-ignored deviant world, this book is as entertaining to read as it is educational. --Peter Moskos, John Jay College of Criminal Justice
An excellent study that finally puts the race/class-biased War on Drugs into perspective. --William J. Chambliss, George Washington University
Compellingly demonstrates that college drug dealers, who are mostly white and middle-class, are not subject to the same constraints as typical, street-level dealers. --Heith Copes, University of Alabama at Birmingham
An excellent study that finally puts the race/class-biased War on Drugs into perspective. --William J. Chambliss, George Washington University
Compellingly demonstrates that college drug dealers, who are mostly white and middle-class, are not subject to the same constraints as typical, street-level dealers. --Heith Copes, University of Alabama at Birmingham
About the Author
A. Rafik Mohamed is associated professor of sociology at the University of San Diego. Erik D. Fritsvold is assistant professor of sociology at the University of San Diego
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4 of 5 people found the following review helpful
By L. L. Yates
Format:Hardcover|Amazon Verified Purchase
This book describes in detail -- at a very personal level -- how drug dealers from white prosperous backgrounds operate on college campuses, and do so with almost complete freedom. The contrast with how young men of color are treated could not be more vivid. The dealers described in this carefully researched book move large amounts of illegal drugs, are tied into drug networks that cross state lines and go into Mexico, and yet rarely face any consequences, even when they move large amounts of illegal drugs in their flashy personal cars, speeding, parking illegally, and brazenly confronting the police. Meanwhile, of course, young people of color, even though they act with discretion and sometimes even if they don't even use drugs, face harassment and the threat of prison sentences counted in decades.
By any criterion, these dealers do as much harm as any other drug dealer, break the same laws, and yet are keenly aware that it is almost impossible that they will get in any trouble, let alone face the long prison sentences that are commonplace in inner city neighborhoods. A major reason for this, the book makes clear, is the existence of gatekeepers, including physicians, college officials, campus police, parents, and ordinary law enforcement, all of whom protect these dealers from consequences.
This is an essential book for understanding racial disparity in this nation, easily deserving a place on the shelf with American Apartheid, the groundbreaking book on housing segregation, Black Wealth/White Wealth, Medical Apartheid, and The New Jim Crow. However, unlike these critical books, Dorm Room Dealers focuses on the privileges given to prosperous white people, making clear that they include not only material goods and social status but protection from the consequences of one's action, no matter how deeply condemned they are to society.
By any criterion, these dealers do as much harm as any other drug dealer, break the same laws, and yet are keenly aware that it is almost impossible that they will get in any trouble, let alone face the long prison sentences that are commonplace in inner city neighborhoods. A major reason for this, the book makes clear, is the existence of gatekeepers, including physicians, college officials, campus police, parents, and ordinary law enforcement, all of whom protect these dealers from consequences.
This is an essential book for understanding racial disparity in this nation, easily deserving a place on the shelf with American Apartheid, the groundbreaking book on housing segregation, Black Wealth/White Wealth, Medical Apartheid, and The New Jim Crow. However, unlike these critical books, Dorm Room Dealers focuses on the privileges given to prosperous white people, making clear that they include not only material goods and social status but protection from the consequences of one's action, no matter how deeply condemned they are to society.
7 of 10 people found the following review helpful
By Peter Moskos
Format:Hardcover
We don't fight the war on drugs against rich college-educated white folks.
Too many books (my own included) treat drug crimes like it's a black thing that whites wouldn't understand. Well it's not like that. Most drug dealers are white. Most drug users are white. It just these people doesn't make the news (or get police attention).
What about all those college drug dealers? Why do we never hear about them? Well this book answers that. I mean, anybody who has gone to college knows you can buy drugs in college. It's like these college drug dealers have no fear of ever getting caught.
Exactly.
These dorm-room dealers sell drugs like they're dorm-room posters. Everybody can see them. They have no fear. You see, the rules are different for them. College drug dealers get in the game, make some cash (or support their habit), and then graduate and get a job, maybe in daddy's firm.
Am I oversimplifying? Of course. You should buy the book. It's outstanding ethnography.
Too many books (my own included) treat drug crimes like it's a black thing that whites wouldn't understand. Well it's not like that. Most drug dealers are white. Most drug users are white. It just these people doesn't make the news (or get police attention).
What about all those college drug dealers? Why do we never hear about them? Well this book answers that. I mean, anybody who has gone to college knows you can buy drugs in college. It's like these college drug dealers have no fear of ever getting caught.
Exactly.
These dorm-room dealers sell drugs like they're dorm-room posters. Everybody can see them. They have no fear. You see, the rules are different for them. College drug dealers get in the game, make some cash (or support their habit), and then graduate and get a job, maybe in daddy's firm.
Am I oversimplifying? Of course. You should buy the book. It's outstanding ethnography.
By tdanielle
Format:Hardcover
Oh Dr. Fritsvold, I would buy your book if it were not $40. Perhaps, I can purchase it from someone who took your class this semester. Thank you for publishing the part of the drug story that the media/police/politicians are less interested in.
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