CRACK DEALING ON THE STREET: THE CREW SYSTEM AND THE CRACK HOUSE

• NCJ Number: 143570
• Journal: Justice Quarterly Volume: 9 Issue: 1 Dated: (March 1992) Pages: 151-163
• Author(s): T Mieczkowski
• Date Published: 1992
• Length: 13 pages
• Grant Number(s): OJP-88-M-38J
• Agencies: NIJ-Sponsored
• Publication Type: Survey

Annotation

Data from two Detroit studies were used to describe street-level buying and selling of crack cocaine.

Abstract

The data sources were the Detroit Crack Ethnography Project, which interviewed 100 active crack dealers, and the Detroit Drug Use Forecast (DUF) Crack Supplement, which provided data from 212 DUF cases. Results revealed that the distinctive street sales technique that emerged in Detroit and other cities during the heroin-dominated 1960's and 1970's did not remain intact in the era of crack cocaine. Instead, the crack trade appears to be dominated by a crack house system rather than an expansion of the crew style of street selling. It is unclear whether the current group of sales methods will stabilize the crack trade or whether further innovations will emerge from the entrepreneurial actions of crack dealers. It is also unclear whether crack dealing in other cities is similar to that in Detroit. Tables, footnotes, and 23 references