NCJ Number
113081
Date Published
1985
Length
211 pages
Annotation
This ethnographic field study examined heroin distribution and consumption and the social organization among adolescent heroin dealers in an inner-city Detroit neighborhood.
Abstract
Data support a hustling model of the retail heroin trade. The heroin sellers were largely nonaddicts who traded in drugs primarily as a source of livelihood, and who participated in the drug trade sporadically and without supervening organizational commitments. Three distribution systems were identified: the runner, the dope pad, and the solo system. The runner system was predominant in this neighborhood. All of the systems had attributes of both structure and process orientations, although the latter was more frequently apparent. Despite their highly coalitional nature, street syndicates were capable of reasonable levels of organization, including a division of labor. The networks relied largely on sporadic client-patron relationships. The systems were characterized by individualism and entrepreneurialism; normative loyalty played little role in the cohesion of systems over time. The use of juvenile sellers in Detroit is an innovation that consciously exploits the legal status of minors: juvenile sellers are punished less severely, are handled more leniently within the juvenile justice system, and suffer no further consequences after reaching the age of majority. Appendix, 6 tables, and 121 references.