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Drug Markets, Travel Distance, and Violence: Testing a Typology

NCJ Number
252244
Journal
Crime & Delinquency Volume: 62 Issue: 11 Dated: 2016 Pages: 1465-1487
Author(s)
Lallen T. Johnson
Date Published
2016
Length
23 pages
Annotation

This research performed a partial test of the typology of drug-market violence proposed by Reuter and MacCoun, using 5 years of arrest and incident data from the Philadelphia Police Department.

Abstract

The factors that complicate understanding the drugs and violence nexus include the role of community structure and subculture, and situational features of market exchanges. Reuter and MacCoun used distance as a proxy for social ties in developing their four-market category typology, which suggests that the mixing of buyers and sellers from various distances has implications for the prevalence of violence expected to occur within them. In the current study, multilevel models were used to show that compared with markets with local buyers and sellers, those characterized by lengthier travel patterns had a significantly higher prevalence of violent incidents. (Publisher abstract modified)