NCJ Number
171348
Journal
Criminology Volume: 34 Issue: 4 Dated: (November 1996) Pages: 465-491
Date Published
1996
Length
27 pages
Annotation
An ethnographic study of female drug users in a New York City neighborhood compared women's involvement in selling and higher-level distribution roles in the crack cocaine markets of the late 1980s and early 1990s with their involvement in the heroin markets of the 1960s and 1970s.
Abstract
The research took place during 1989-92. Information was collected by means of repeated observations and interviews of 45 females who were active crack users in the Bushwick neighborhood. The participants included 20 Hispanics, 16 blacks, and 9 whites. Their average age was 28 years; the range was 19-41 years. Eighty-four percent were born in the New York City area. About one-fourth were raised in households with both parents present; 38 percent grew up in households in which they experienced physical abuse. Eight-four percent had not completed high school, 91 percent were homeless, and 55 percent had no experience of legal employment. Some suggested that crack cocaine markets have provided new opportunities for women, but also that markets, should not be considered to be equal opportunity employers. Instead, recent drug markets continue to be monopolized by men and to offer few opportunities for stable income for women. Although women's presence on the street and in low-level auxiliary roles may have increased since the 1960s and 1970s, their participation as substantive labor in the drug-selling marketplace has not increased. In addition, the conditions of street-level sex work, which has traditionally provided female drug users with a relatively stable source of income, have deteriorated. Table, footnotes, and 77 references (Author abstract modified)