An Economic Analysis of a Drug-selling Gang's Finances
An Economic Analysis of a Drug-selling Gang's Finances

Author: Steven D. Levitt

Publisher:

Published: 1998

Total Pages: 84

ISBN-13:

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We analyze a unique data set detailing the financial activities of a drug-selling street gang on a monthly basis over a four-year period in the recent past. The data, originally compiled by the gang leader to aid in managing the organization, contain detailed information on both the sources of revenues (e.g. drug sales, extortion) and expenditrues (e.g. costs of drugs sold, weapons, tribute to the central gang organization, wages paid to various levels of the gang). Street-level drug dealing appears to be less lucrative than is generally though. We estimate the average wage in the organization to rise from roughly $6 per hour to $11 per hour over the time period studied. The distribution of wages, however, is extremely skewed. Gang leaders earn far more than they could in the legitimate sector, but the actual street-level dealers appear to earn less than the minimum wage throughout most of our sample, in spite of the substantial risks associated with such activities (the annual violent death rate in our sample is 0.07), There is some evidence consistent both with compensating differentials and efficiency wages. The markup on drugs suggests that the gang has substantial local market power. Gang wars appear to have an important strategic component: violence on another gang's turf shifts demand away from that area. The gang we observe responds to such attacks by pricing below marginal cost, suggesting either economic punishment for the rival gang or the presence of switching for users that makes market share maintenance valuable. We investigate a range of alternative methods for estimating the willingness of gang members to accept risks of death, all of which suggest that the implicit value that gang members place on their own lives is very low.

Gang Leader for a Day
Gang Leader for a Day

Author: Sudhir Venkatesh

Publisher: Penguin

Published: 2008-01-10

Total Pages: 326

ISBN-13: 1440631891

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A New York Times Bestseller "A rich portrait of the urban poor, drawn not from statistics but from vivid tales of their lives and his, and how they intertwined." —The Economist "A sensitive, sympathetic, unpatronizing portrayal of lives that are ususally ignored or lumped into ill-defined stereotype." —Finanical Times Foreword by Stephen J. Dubner, coauthor of Freakonomics When first-year graduate student Sudhir Venkatesh walked into an abandoned building in one of Chicago’s most notorious housing projects, he hoped to find a few people willing to take a multiple-choice survey on urban poverty--and impress his professors with his boldness. He never imagined that as a result of this assignment he would befriend a gang leader named JT and spend the better part of a decade embedded inside the projects under JT’s protection. From a privileged position of unprecedented access, Venkatesh observed JT and the rest of his gang as they operated their crack-selling business, made peace with their neighbors, evaded the law, and rose up or fell within the ranks of the gang’s complex hierarchical structure. Examining the morally ambiguous, highly intricate, and often corrupt struggle to survive in an urban war zone, Gang Leader for a Day also tells the story of the complicated friendship that develops between Venkatesh and JT--two young and ambitious men a universe apart. Sudhir Venkatesh’s latest book Floating City: A Rogue Sociologist Lost and Found in New York’s Underground Economy—a memoir of sociological investigation revealing the true face of America’s most diverse city—is also published by Penguin Press.

Narconomics
Narconomics

Author: Tom Wainwright

Publisher: PublicAffairs

Published: 2016-02-23

Total Pages: 289

ISBN-13: 1610395840

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Picking his way through Andean cocaine fields, Central American prisons, Colorado pot shops, and the online drug dens of the Dark Web, Tom Wainwright provides a fresh, innovative look into the drug trade and its 250 million customers. More than just an investigation of how drug cartels do business, Narconomics is also a blueprint for how to defeat them. How does a budding cartel boss succeed (and survive) in the 300 billion illegal drug business? By learning from the best, of course. From creating brand value to fine-tuning customer service, the folks running cartels have been attentive students of the strategy and tactics used by corporations such as Walmart, McDonald's, and Coca-Cola. And what can government learn to combat this scourge? By analyzing the cartels as companies, law enforcers might better understand how they work -- and stop throwing away 100 billion a year in a futile effort to win the "war" against this global, highly organized business. Your intrepid guide to the most exotic and brutal industry on earth is Tom Wainwright. Picking his way through Andean cocaine fields, Central American prisons, Colorado pot shops, and the online drug dens of the Dark Web, Wainwright provides a fresh, innovative look into the drug trade and its 250 million customers. The cast of characters includes "Bin Laden," the Bolivian coca guide; Old Lin," the Salvadoran gang leader; "Starboy," the millionaire New Zealand pill maker; and a cozy Mexican grandmother who cooks blueberry pancakes while plotting murder. Along with presidents, cops, and teenage hitmen, they explain such matters as the business purpose for head-to-toe tattoos, how gangs decide whether to compete or collude, and why cartels care a surprising amount about corporate social responsibility. More than just an investigation of how drug cartels do business, Narconomics is also a blueprint for how to defeat them.

Blood Gun Money
Blood Gun Money

Author: Ioan Grillo

Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing USA

Published: 2021-02-23

Total Pages: 417

ISBN-13: 1635572797

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“An eye-opening and riveting account of how guns make it into the black market and into the hands of criminals and drug lords.”--Adam Winkler From the author of El Narco and winner of the Maria Moors Cabot Prize, a searing investigation into the enormous black market for firearms, essential to cartels and gangs in the drug trade and contributing to the epidemic of mass shootings. The gun control debate is revived with every mass shooting. But far more people die from gun deaths on the street corners of inner city America and across the border as Mexico's powerful cartels battle to control the drug trade. Guns and drugs aren't often connected in our heated discussions of gun control-but they should be. In Ioan Grillo's groundbreaking new work of investigative journalism, he shows us this connection by following the market for guns in the Americas and how it has made the continent the most murderous on earth. Grillo travels to gun manufacturers, strolls the aisles of gun shows and gun shops, talks to federal agents who have infiltrated biker gangs, hangs out on Baltimore street corners, and visits the ATF gun tracing center in West Virginia. Along the way, he details the many ways that legal guns can cross over into the black market and into the hands of criminals, fueling violence here and south of the border. Simple legislative measures would help close these loopholes, but America's powerful gun lobby is uncompromising in its defense of the hallowed Second Amendment. Perhaps, however, if guns were seen not as symbols of freedom, but as key accessories in our epidemics of addiction, the conversation would shift. Blood Gun Money is that conversation shifter.

The Oxford Handbook of Environmental Criminology
The Oxford Handbook of Environmental Criminology

Author: Gerben J.N. Bruinsma

Publisher: Oxford University Press

Published: 2018-02-08

Total Pages: 969

ISBN-13: 0190279710

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The study of how the environment, local geography, and physical locations influence crime has a long history that stretches across many research traditions. These include the neighborhood effects approach developed in the 1920s, the criminology of place, and a newer approach that attends to the perception of crime in communities. Aided by new technologies and improved data-reporting in recent decades, research in environmental criminology has developed rapidly within each of these approaches. Yet research in the subfield remains fragmented and competing theories are rarely examined together. The Oxford Handbook of Environmental Criminology takes a unique approach and synthesizes the contributions of existing methods to better integrate the subfield as a whole. Gerben J.N. Bruinsma and Shane D. Johnson have assembled a cast of top scholars to provide an in-depth source for understanding how and why physical setting can influence the emergence of crime, affect the environment, and impact individual or group behavior. The contributors address how changes in the environment, global connectivity, and technology provide more criminal opportunities and new ways of committing old crimes. They also explore how crimes committed in countries with distinct cultural practices like China and West Africa might lead to different spatial patterns of crime. This is a state-of-the-art compendium on environmental criminology that reflects the diverse research and theory developed across the western world.

Street Gang Patterns and Policies
Street Gang Patterns and Policies

Author: Malcolm W. Klein

Publisher: Oxford University Press

Published: 2010-04-12

Total Pages: 321

ISBN-13: 0199890102

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In the past two decades, many prevention and suppression programs have been initiated on a national and local level to combat street gangs--but what do we really know about them? Why do youths join them? Why do they proliferate? Street Gang Patterns and Policies is a crucial update and critical examination of our understanding of gangs and major gang-control programs across the nation. Often perceived solely as an urban issue, street gangs are also a suburban and rural dilemma. Klein and Maxson focus on gang proliferation, migration, and crime patterns, and highlight known risk factors that lead to youths form and join gangs within communities. Dispelling the long-standing assumptions that the public, the media, and law enforcement have about street gangs, they present a comprehensive overview of how gangs are organized and structured. The authors assess the major gang programs across the nation and argue that existing prevention, intervention, and suppression methods targeting individuals, groups, and communities, have been largely ineffective. Klein and Maxson close by offering valuable policy guidelines for practitioners on how to intervene and control gangs more successfully. Filling an important gap in the literature on street gangs and social control, this book is a must-read for criminologists, social workers, policy makers, and criminal justice practitioners.

Crips and Bloods
Crips and Bloods

Author: Herbert C. Covey

Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing USA

Published: 2015-06-23

Total Pages: 233

ISBN-13: 0313399301

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This book provides a concise and engaging examination of the subculture of the Crips and Bloods—the notorious street gangs that started in Los Angeles, but have now spread throughout the United States. Despite the dangers and harsh realities intrinsic to street life and criminal activity, the no-holds-barred lifestyle of gangs continues to interest mainstream America. This provocative book provides an insider's look into the subculture of two of the most notorious street gangs—the Crips and the Bloods. Crips and Bloods: A Guide to an American Subculture traces the evolution of the two gangs, covering their origins in South Central Los Angeles to the organizations' current presence throughout the United States. The author analyzes the ways in which the gang subculture is created, promoted, and perpetuated; shows how the groups currently recruit their members; and explores the ways Crip and Blood culture has expanded beyond the gangs into the larger mainstream society.

Beginning with Disability
Beginning with Disability

Author: Lennard J. Davis

Publisher: Taylor & Francis

Published: 2017-09-20

Total Pages: 366

ISBN-13: 1315453207

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While there are many introductions to disability and disability studies, most presume an advanced academic knowledge of a range of subjects. Beginning with Disability is the first introductory primer for disaibility studies aimed at first year students in two- and four-year colleges. This volume of essays across disciplines—including education, sociology, communications, psychology, social sciences, and humanities—features accessible, readable, and relatively short chapters that do not require specialized knowledge. Lennard Davis, along with a team of consulting editors, has compiled a number of blogs, vlogs, and other videos to make the materials more relatable and vivid to students. "Subject to Debate" boxes spotlight short pro and con pieces on controversial subjects that can be debated in class or act as prompts for assignments.

Juvenile Justice Sourcebook
Juvenile Justice Sourcebook

Author: Wesley T Church, II

Publisher: Oxford University Press

Published: 2014-02-28

Total Pages: 706

ISBN-13: 019932462X

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Several million reported and unreported delinquent acts take place each year. In fact, according to the U.S. Department of Justice and the U.S. Bureau of Justice Statistics, juvenile delinquency, acting-out and oppositional behavior, illegal drugs, guns, and youth violence are pervasive throughout American society. Juvenile Justice Sourcebook is the first comprehensive volume devoted exclusively to the biopsychosocial assessment, police and juvenile court processing, and institutional and community-based treatment and rehabilitation of juvenile offenders. The overriding objective of this sourcebook is to trace the tremendous progress achieved toward resolving juvenile justice issues, dilemmas, and controversies, while providing futuristic visions for the juvenile justice field. Each chapter, authored by preeminent expert practitioners and researchers, explores topics ranging from innovative counseling and multisystemic programs, to restorative justice, to rehabilitation programs such as aggression replacement training, wilderness programs, family treatment, substance abuse treatment, restitution, and aftercare. This volume, grounded in history and exhaustive research, presents the latest evidence-based policies, programs, and innovative treatment alternatives. Examining the entire juvenile justice system, including juvenile law, policies, practices, and research, the Juvenile Justice Sourcebook will be invaluable to all juvenile justice practitioners, policy analysts, researchers, and students.