Code of the Suburb

Inside the World of Young Middle-Class Drug Dealers

Scott Jacques, Richard Wright

• Publisher: University of Chicago Press
• Year: 2015
• ISBN:
  9780226164250
• Topic: Social Sciences
• Subtopic: Sociology
• Index: Social Sciences

When we think about young people dealing drugs, we tend to picture it happening on urban streets, in disadvantaged, crime-ridden neighborhoods. But drugs are used everywhere—even in upscale suburbs and top-tier high schools—and teenage users in the suburbs tend to buy drugs from their peers, dealers who have their own culture and code, distinct from their urban counterparts.In Code of the Suburb, Scott Jacques and Richard Wright offer a fascinating ethnography of the culture of suburban drug dealers. Drawing on fieldwork among teens in a wealthy suburb of Atlanta, they carefully parse the complicated code that governs relationships among buyers, sellers, police, and other suburbanites. That code differs from the one followed by urban drug dealers in one crucial respect: whereas urban drug dealers see violent vengeance as crucial to status and security, the opposite is true for their suburban counterparts. As Jacques and Wright show, suburban drug dealers accord status to deliberate avoidance of conflict, which helps keep their drug markets more peaceful—and, consequently, less likely to be noticed by law enforcement.Offering new insight into both the little-studied area of suburban drug dealing, and, by extension, the more familiar urban variety, Code of the Suburb will be of interest to scholars and policy makers alike.

Notes

Introduction

1. Burgess 1925. For studies of the history of suburbia, see Beauregard 2006; Binford 1985; Bruegmann 2005; Fishman 1987; Fogelson 2005; Hayden 2003; Jackson 1985; Kotkin 2005; Stilgoe 1988; Warner 1978.

2. For information regarding the challenges of transportation in metropolitan Atlanta, see Dunham-Jones 2005.

3. For studies and commentary on the lack of physical diversity in suburban communities, see Brueggman 2005; Duany, Plater-Zyberk, and Speck 2010; Fogelson 2005; Hayden 2003; B. M. Kelly 1993; Kushner 2009; Langdon 1994; Schwarzer 2005; Venturi, Brown, and Izenour 1977.

4. All names are pseudonyms.

Chapter 1

1. For studies of suburbanites as privacy-oriented individuals, see Fogelson 2005; B. M. Kelly 1993; Low 2004. For studies of suburbanites as lacking intimacy with fellow community members, see Brueggman 2005; Duany, Plater-Zyberk, and Speck 2010; Fishman 1987; Krieger 2005; Kunstler 1993; Langdon 1994; Marshall 2000; Oliver 2001.

2. For academic treatments of “cool” and “coolness,” see Anderson 1976; Connor 1995; Danesi 1994; Frank 1997; Hooks 2004; Majors and Billson 1992; Milner 2006; Pountain and Robbins 2000; Stearns 1994.

3. See also Danesi 1994; Milner 2006.

4. See also Danesi 1994; Milner 2006.

5. See also Danesi 1994; Harrison and Morgan 2005; Milner 2006.

6. See also Danesi 1994; E. Goffman 1963b; Milner 2006.

7. See Wooden and Blazak 2001.

8. See also Milner 2006.

9. Danesi 1994; Milner 2006.

10. See Anderson 1999; Milner 2006.

11. Throughout this book we consider how our participants sought to present themselves as cool to their peers; see E. Goffman 1959.

12. See also Foster and Spencer 2013.

13. Moffitt (1993) proposes a similar theory. Our interpretation of her theory is that “adolescent-limited offenders” (ALOs) are motivated to commit crime because it confers a sense of mature status, power, and privilege. For us, however, ALOs are motivated by the accrual of coolness (which is a form of status in itself), which earns respect and social desirability (which may be seen as aspects of power and privilege) and thereby produces feelings of self-worth.

14. For studies of the connection between offending and peer status, see Danesi 1994; Faris and Felmlee 2011; Gould 2003; Kreager 2007; Kreager, Rulison, and Moody 2011; Maggs and Hurrelmann 1998; Milner 2006; Moffitt 1993. For the effect of peer influence on substance use, see, e.g., Gallupe and Bouchard 2013; Parker, Aldridge, and Measham 1998.

15. See H. Becker 1963; Perrone 2009.

16. See B. C. Kelly 2006.

17. See also Milner 2006.

18. See Veblen (1899) 1994.

19. For additional studies of the motives associated with dealing drugs, see Adler 1993; Anderson 1999; Atkyns and Hanneman 1974; Carey 1968; Curcione 1997; Jacinto et al. 2008; Jacobs 1999; Levitt and Venkatesh 2000; Lieb and Olson 1976; Mohamed and Fritsvold 2009; Uggen and Thompson 2003; VanNostrand and Tewksbury 1999; Waldorf, Reinarman, and Murphy 1991. For other criminal ways to afford a drug habit, see, e.g., Goldstein 1985; Bennett and Holloway 2007.

20. See also Milner 2006.

21. See also Besen-Cassino 2013, 2014.

22. See also Danesi 1994; Milner 2006.

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