Drug dealers, retaliation, and deterrence.
BACKGROUND
Illicit drug sellers have limited access to formal mediation and therefore are rational targets to predators. As such, dealers are especially reliant on retaliation to deter victimization. Prior scholarship on dealers, retaliation, and deterrence has focused largely on general deterrence, or the effect of punishing one person on others. Research is yet to shed much light on other types of deterrence that dealers engage in.


METHODS
This paper addresses that gap by drawing on qualitative data obtained in interviews with 25 unincarcerated drug sellers from disadvantaged neighborhoods in St. Louis, Missouri.


RESULTS
We find that dealers' use of retaliation is linked to four kinds of deterrence-general, specific, situational, and permeating-and that these are combined into three forms: namely, specific-situational; specific-permeating; and comprehensive (i.e., all four kinds simultaneously).


CONCLUSIONS
Implications for research, theory, and "criminal justice" are discussed. Specifically, we call for future scholarship to examine how each type of deterrence affects the others, and suggest that both predation against and retaliation by drug dealers might be reduced by granting them greater access to formal means of dispute resolution.
Department of Criminal Justice and Criminology, Georgia State University, PO Box 4018, Atlanta, GA 30302 United States. Electronic address: sjacques1@gsu.edu.
Scott
S
Jacques
Department of Criminology and Criminal Justice, University of Missouri - St. Louis, One University Boulevard, St. Louis, MO 63121 United States.
Richard
R
Wright
Department of Social Sciences, Clayton State University, 2000 Clayton State Boulevard, Morrow, GA 30260, United States.
Andrea
A
Allen
D002755:Choice Behavior; D034462:Dissent and Disputes; D064423:Drug Trafficking / Q000523:psychology*; D006801:Humans; D008923:Missouri; D011678:Punishment; D011795:Surveys and Questionnaires
Deterrence; Drug dealers; Offender decision-making; Retaliation