Crack Dealing on the Street: Crew System and the Crack House (From Drugs, Crime, and Justice: Contemporary Perspectives, P 193-204, 1997, Larry K Gaines and Peter B Kraska, eds. -- See NCJ-165819)

• NCJ Number: 165828
• Author(s): T Mieczkowski
• Date Published: 1997
• Length: 12 pages
• Sale Source: Waveland Press, Inc.
• Publication Type: Survey
• Language: English
• Country: United States of America
• Note: DCC

Annotation

Distinctive street sales techniques that emerged in Detroit and other cities during the heroin-dominated 1960's and 1970's do not appear to have survived intact in the crack cocaine era of the 1990's.

Abstract

Data were obtained from the Detroit Crack Ethnography Project (DCEP) conducted in 1988 and 1989 and from the Detroit Drug Use Forecast (DUF) Crack Supplement. The DCEP studied 100 active crack dealers in Detroit, while the DUF study collected information on Detroit arrestees. DCEP findings showed the open air street crew system associated with the heroin business was not prominent in the crack market. Open street sales were not a typical or a popular method for selling crack. As an organizational format, this method was a distant third to crack houses and "beeper men" who delivered crack to customers and met customers at designated locations. Purchasing crack from street corner or curbside vendors was not popular with customers. They strongly preferred to purchase from fixed locales or from established vendors who worked off the beeper. Although the crew system per se has not survived intact as a marketing device, elements of the process have persisted and have been incorporated into the crack trade. The most prominent elements are the dominant role of young managers and a management system that is similar to the crew system. 23 references, 5 notes, and 2 tables