There have been many studies that have been conducted to determine why people become drug dealers, and what makes these drug dealers “tick.” There are four main articles that will be discussed to help answer the question of why people become drug dealers. These articles include “The Motives and Mechanics of Operating an Illegal Drug Enterprise”, “Researching Dealers and Smugglers”, “Researching Crack Dealers”, and lastly, “Drifting into Dealing: Becoming a Cocaine Seller”. In addition to the presentation of these articles and their main arguments and points, answers to the question that were conducted using traditional criminological theories will be compared and contrasted to view the similarities and differences that these articles have in accordance to criminological theories. The more popular reason to explain why people become drug dealers is the reason that is defined by environmental-level variables. These variables affect a person in their decision making process and will affect the type of life that they lead, based on their involvement in the community. Areas that are lower class with higher levels of crime and relation to gang activity may be a direct cause to someone becoming involved in the dealing of drugs. It is often that these types of areas have a wide range of members involved in the drug game. With this influence on the community, it is easy for people, especially young adults, to view this life as their only option, and therefore, they become involved in this type of business that is very hard to leave at a later state of their life. With the negative influence of the community and the people around, it is very easy for a person to get caught up in this type of lifestyle, and many see it as a way to make easy... ... middle of paper ... ...e to become involved in the dangerous and risky acts of drug dealing. It is important for an individual to be able to support themselves, as well as anyone in their family that needs to be supported financially too. Another factor involved with drug dealing is the location that drug dealers are apart of in their community. It is found through other studies that areas that are highly populated with low incomes are more susceptible to individuals becoming involved in drug dealing. With these two main factors of reasons to become a drug dealer, Rational Choice Theory and Social Disorganization Theory are applied to these studies to further explain why these events occur. Drug dealing is an extremely dangerous and risky business, but with the possibility of creating a large income, it is hard to pass up the opportunity that may lead to great benefits in the near future.
In the 1970’s Patricia Adler and her husband infiltrated a large drug smuggling and dealing ring located in Southwest County of southern California with the intent of learning more about the covert group. In Adler’s book Wheeling and Dealing: an Ethnography of an Upper-Level Drug Dealing and Smuggling Community, she delves into the multifaceted lifestyle and activities of those in the Southwest County drug world. In this paper, I will look into the factors that initiated their entry into the drug world, their activates that facilitated their smuggling and dealing of drugs, and their exit from the drug world, while applying multiple theories to explain their illegal behavior.
In countries of poverty, lacking of security is a long-lasting common problem. Because some of the poor countries have corrupt government, and some of them might be in a tense situation which wars will happen at anytime. Laos, a Southeast Asian country, shares a border with China. In Laos, smuggling drugs is very popular, because of lacking of security. Germinating the seeds of drugs is easier in the country, since less people are in charge of public security. Since Laos is one of east Asia’s poorest countries, people are eager to get wealthy. By smuggling drugs, it is easier for people to earn a lot of money. With the access to drugs effortlessly, young people are easily addicted to drugs. Since young people do not know how to control themselves, using drugs becomes a serious
Over the past 60 years there has been a recent phenomenon in the development and rise of gangs and gang violence. This is exceptionally apparent in South Central Los Angeles, where the Bloods and the Crips have taken control of the social structure and created a new type of counter culture. Poverty in this area is an enormous problem caused by a sheer lack of jobs; but just because there is a lack of jobs doesn’t mean that there will be a lack of bills to pay, so sometimes selling drugs in order to keep a roof over your head seems like the most logical option. Crime often times flourishes in these regions because the inconvenient truth is; crime pays. Senator Tom Hayden stated “It’s been defined as a crime problem and a gang problem
Due to the serious consequences of the drug problem and its related crimes in the United States, law enforcement identified six goals to handle cases of such nature. The first goal is to reduce the gang violence associated with drug trafficking and prevent the emergence of powerful organized criminal groups. Organized group are the main distribution of drugs in the community. They sell drugs for many reasons. It’s fast money, help fund other criminal activities and difficult for law enforcement to build a case against them for it. The drugs problem brings other crimes into the community. With drugs comes violence, drug wars and death. It is the main cause of the degradation of the community. Therefore, confronting the root of the problem by
a slum and becoming successful. Teens in these areas are more likely to sell drugs and perform
The reason with the old ways do not work, Alexander say, is because “self-destructive drug users are responding in a tragic, but understandable way” (226). It is not their drug- problem that caused the dislocation, but the dislocation that cause the drug problem. He uses the term dislocation to describe the lack of integration with “family, community, society and spiritual values” (226). Alexander goes on to explain that history proves that inability to achieve health opportunities can take on the form of violence, and damaging drug use. Therefore, the “drug problem” (226) is not the problem. The problem is more the “pattern of response to prolong dislocation” (226). Alexander supports this by explaining the reason for the dislocation as being globalized by a society that is market driven which can only be established by the displacement of tradition, economy, and relationships. This has been seen in history before in England during the 19TH century, when “a brutal, export-oriented manufacturing system” was accompanied by work...
Youth who chose to become traffickers often do so because they believe it is an exciting way to make a lot of money quickly. (National Crime Prevention Council, Washington, D.C. & National Institute for Citizen Education in the Law, 1992, p. 160)
Concerned authorities have focused essentially on criminalization and punishment, to find remedies to the ever-increasing prevalent drug problem. In the name of drug reducing policies, authorities endorse more corrective and expensive drug control methods and officials approve stricter new drug war policies, violating numerous human rights. Regardless of or perhaps because of these efforts, UN agencies estimate the annual revenue generated by the illegal drug industry at $US400 billion, or the equivalent of roughly eight per cent of total international trade (Riley 1998). This trade has increased organized/unorganized crime, corrupted authorities and police officials, raised violence, disrupted economic markets, increased risk of diseases an...
Several things are evident throughout the novel Random Family. One is that the neighborhood the characters live in is one of the poorest in the Bronx. Due to this fact, there are many residents there who have turned to the sale of illegal substances in order to have the finances needed to survive on. This, in turn, leads to aliances with these less than honorable characters in order for the books characters to try and rise above the poverty. When the books main figures see the drug dealers bringing in $5-50,000 a week, dressed in leather and gold chains, and riding around in limosines; it makes it hard to turn away from such finery when they’ve gone their entire lifetime without. However, by getting themselves involved in such activities, they put not only theirselves, but their entire family at risk as well.
Drug tracking is an issue that is affecting more young adults than other generation. My hypothesis is that young individual get involved in drug tracking because their want to have a life glamorous life. I feel that my generation want to achieve their goal by the easiest and quickest way. Also, people that get involved in this deviant behavior is because is what their see everyday life. One of the big issues with drug trafficking is that when people get in is hard to get out. I use Albert Bandura social learning theory to describe this deviant behavior. Social learning theory as I said before is learning by observing others behaviors and attitudes. Most of the most famous drug dealer came from lower income family, so their feel identified.
The first criminological theory, that explains behavior of the drug sellers, is the theory of Differential Association. Differential Association, termed by Edwin Sutherland, argued that persons engage in delinquent behavior because they learn it from society and they engage in it when it benefits them. By this, he is saying that an individual will be a criminal if they experience an excess of criminal definitions over conventional definitions. Sutherland discovered that Differential Association is developed through various stages and he explains such development with the use of nine propositions. (Lily et al. 2011, 48) Such propositions are as follows: (1) criminal behavior is learned, (2) it...
Belliar, Paul E., and Thomas L. McNulty. 2009. “Gang Membership, Drug Selling, and Violence in Neighborhood Context.” JQ: Justice Quarterly 26 (4): 644-69. Web. 15 March 2014.
With the promise of a greater life by the gangs, the excited teens get attracted to the illegal activities of the mob (Bryman, 2008). Some of the teens are addicts of substances and they tend to believe that being in a gang will give them the freedom to continue using it. At home, the challenge can be bad since parents may not even have an idea of an addiction or ways of coping. Therefore, most teens are forced to join a mob because they have the desired freedom and access to the drugs. Some of the teens are pressured into joining a mob if their association will add to the mob’s criminal actions.
The Drug Trafficking is the terminology used for addressing production, cultivation, distribution and selling of the drugs in an illicit manner against the laws that prohibit the use of such drugs like cocaine, marijuana, alcohol, heroine etc. Crime and violence spreading due to growing influence of drug industry and international drug trafficking and its impact on the economic opportunities of the citizens and geopolitical stability worldwide has been emerging as a core and prominent issue concerned with the Geopolitical Science. From past one decade, this illegal international drug trafficking has occupied almost 1% of the global business as more than 1.3 trillion dollars have been traded in 2009 into it.1 The illegal trading, economic instability, deterioration of human life, geo-political instability and burgeoning dominance of crime and violence proliferated by the Drug Trafficking encourages transnational organized crime across the borders and poses a threat to the sanity, morality, humanity harmony and democratic values of our society and hence it should be handled proactively in collaboration with IGOs and NGOs by implementing stern strategies for diminishing its impact across the society.
One of the reasons young people join street gangs is because of neighborhood disadvantages. A theory that can contribute to why young people might join street gangs is Social Disorganization Theory. Social Disorganization theory assumes that “delinquency emerges in neighborhoods where neighborhood relation and social institutions have broken down and can no longer maintain effective social controls (Bell, 2007).” Social Disorganization contributes to residential instability and poverty, which affects interpersonal relationships within the community and opens opportunities for crimes to be committed. The break down of neighborhood relation and social institutions create a higher likely hood that young people will affiliate with deviant peers and get involved in gangs. When there is lack of social controls within a neighborhood the opportunity to commit deviance increases and the exposure to deviant groups such as street gangs increase. Which causes an increase in the chances of young people joining street gangs. If social controls are strong remain strong within a neighborhood and/or community the chances of young people committing crime and joining gangs decreases.