Spatial Perspectives On Illegal Drug Markets Research Paper

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Illegal drug markets have been the subject of considerable research in environmental criminology. Two main types of study have been conducted: evaluations of law enforcement strategies designed to police illegal drug markets and empirical studies which focus on the social and environmental context of places where drug distribution and consumption tends to occur. By addressing the dynamic relationship between drug trading, market procedures, environment, and police interventions, both approaches share the common aim of informing more effective crime prediction and control strategies. Since the main purposes of illicit drug markets are to both provide and secure the supply chain of illicit commodities, understanding how and where buyers and dealers position themselves to engage into transactions is critical to crime prevention.

This research paper addresses what is normally the last and lowest stage in the illegal drug supply chain – the drug market. Here, the term drug market refers to urban location(s) where illicit commodities are illegally traded. This research paper considers the extent to which illicit drug markets depend on the specific geography of places and on their amenities. The discussion will highlight how the areas surrounding these places affect their suitability as drug markets and what makes them attractive from an economic perspective. One proposition that will be discussed is that since the demand for drugs displays a nonrandom spatial pattern across the urban environment, crime prevention strategies might usefully focus on targeting and altering specific locations that are conducive to drug crime, rather than or as well as, focusing on particular individuals or groups of people.

This research paper is organized as follows: first, the theoretical context and a dilemma regarding the location of drug markets will be discussed. Next, a marketing perspective will be discussed that has been proposed to explain the reasoning behind locational choices. The subsequent sections will explore the relational links between drug markets, drug-related crimes, and law enforcement actions. And, finally, further questions and potential research areas will be highlighted.

Theoretical Rationale

An urban-dweller’s routine consists of a number of activities distributed across the town or city, and the practice of committing crime is no exception. Environmental criminology identifies three factors which influence the probability of a crime event occurring: the “when,” the “where,” and the “how” (Brantingham and Brantingham 1995). The “where” refers to the spatial location of a crime. Researchers suggest (Cohen and Felson 1979) that patterns of criminal activity are influenced by both the physical environment and a criminal’s perception of what constitutes a good or bad opportunity for committing crime. Furthermore, it is proposed (Brantingham and Brantingham 1984; Cohen and Felson 1979) that the way in which a criminal moves around during their daily routine provides them with the knowledge about their surrounding environment and the opportunities it offers for criminal activity. Therefore, according to this perspective, crimes should be more highly concentrated within criminals’ awareness spaces, and these are likely to be defined by the constellation of places they move around within their noncriminal daily routines (Cohen and Felson 1979; Brantingham and Brantingham 1984).

This rationale has been applied by scholars (Eck 1995; Rengert et al. 2005) to try to explain how both drug buyers and dealers identify places that are potentially suitable for transactions of the kind they involve themselves in. Moreover, it is proposed that rational decision making on the part of both participants – buyer and dealer – in the transaction influences the geographical distribution of drug dealing locations (Eck 1995). Depending on the method of transaction, drug markets can be very large and dispersed, or small and more concentrated (Eck 1995). Scholars (Rengert et al. 2005; McCord and Ratcliffe 2007) have identified that profitable drug markets are often situated in or near socially disorganized neighborhoods, where there is a lack of social resistance to the market’s existence and from which there may be a ready supply of people willing to purchase drugs. However, the rationale for choosing these neighborhoods remains disputed: it is still unknown whether the locations are chosen initially due to their accessibility to a large number of drug users and their presence undermines the neighborhoods’ social organization (Eck 1994) or whether the initial lack of social resistance provides optimal grounds for establishing drug markets (McCord and Ratcliffe 2007).

Additionally, it has been noticed that the success of trading locations is associated with types of land uses that are conducive to, or generate, other types of crime. For example, drug dealing is likely to happen close to facilities which inherently and routinely generate a large flow of people. These are mainly open public spaces, retail, entertainment facilities, and transport interchanges that are associated with low levels of adequate guardianship or place management (Eck and Wartell 1996). In their analysis, Rengert and colleagues defined two types of built environment facilities that may be associated with the locations of drug markets. First, there are those which indirectly increase the profits from drug sales, because they facilitate nonresidents’ access to an area. An example of this would be transport interchanges, which provide easy access to the drug markets (Brantingham and Brantingham 1995). Second, there are those which generate opportunities for drug transactions because they are used routinely by potential drug buyers, for example, areas near to homeless shelters or pawnshops, where potential buyers can readily convert stolen goods to cash (Anderson 1999).

The Main Dilemma

In the same way that legitimate businesses do not select their location at random, drug market placement may reflect rational decision making (Eck 1995; Rengert et al. 2005): the main aim of both activities is to attract customers and supply products to them in order to make a profit. From a strategic perspective, when deciding where to locate their stores, retailers focus on finding an accessible spatial location which will attract many potential customers. However, their locational choices are also constrained by different planning regulations and environmental impact assessments, which are required by authorities to allow the placement of the shop.

Rengert (1996) suggests that drug dealers may follow a similar logic and try to identify potential profitable sites. As Rengert states, “the quality of the sale’s location is directly related to the quantity of profit for the illegal drug sales” (Rengert 1996). However, in contrast to legitimate trading, in the case of illegal markets, offenders have an additional goal: staying safe and unnoticed so as to avoid arrest (Reuter and MacCoun 1993). Thus, drug dealing locational choices are also constrained by the presence of legitimate and capable guardians who discourage criminal opportunities (Eck 1994). These include security guards, home and shop owners, and generally people who manage such places. In their study of drug and disorder problems, Mazerolle et al. (1998) found that at the level of street blocks, the place managers who engaged in crime prevention activities played an important role in guarding places from drug problems. Moreover, they found that place managers who engage their neighbors from the same street block in crime prevention efforts are more effective than individual efforts.

Eck (1995) has termed this specific aspect of drug markets the accessibility vs. security dilemma: “how to exchange illicit goods or service when the exchange process is very risky” (p. 71). Illicit drug markets typically face the conflict between needing to be accessible to many customers, including complete strangers, and avoiding the vulnerabilities associated with drug sales. Due to the illicit nature of the market, both customers and dealers are usually in a vulnerable position, since they run the risk of both legal intervention and being cheated or robbed by their counterpart during the course of a transaction. Of course, there is no means of securing the transaction through law enforcement or of resolving such conflict of interests through legal channels (Reuter and MacCoun 1993). Thus, violence is a very common means of regulating and resolving disagreements (Goldstein 1985), especially in street-based sales, where exchanges take place outdoors, often between anonymous participants. Both buyers and dealers will thus be motivated to limit their accessibility so as to reduce risk, seeking locations that they personally consider to be safest. Such places may be enclosed and familiar locations. For example, indoor sales may be made from fixed locations such as drug houses or deliveries made to indoor locations specified by the customers (Curtis and Wendel; 2000). However, in both of these scenarios, one of the participants will always be at a greater risk than the other, since they will not be familiar with the location. In some cases, unfamiliarity may lead to them avoiding a location altogether.

Eck proposes two models of drug markets which can overcome the access-security dilemma, given the constant risk of police presence. The first is the social network-based transactions model, in which security is provided through a network of trusted people. The second is the routine activity model, in which both participants use their legitimate daily activities to search for places which are potentially appropriate for engaging in drug deals. In the first model, there is no attachment to a specific location: through a social network both parties can arrange a mutually accessible location, potentially based on their routine. This type of market tends to be closed in nature, and the market itself may be dispersed over a large geographical area, leading to a low spatial concentration of drug dealing incidents (Eck 1995). Although a network-based exchange offers security, it also limits the number of participants in the transaction, which in turn reduces the potential for profit.

The second model proposed assumes that the spatial-temporal patterns of both participants’ legitimate daily activities determine where their drug transactions occur. These markets tend to be spatially clustered and to focus on locations which are familiar to both participants, thereby reducing their perception of potential risks. These markets also need specific operating conditions: when surrounded, for instance, by a large number of legitimate activities and a constant flow of foot traffic, it is easier to blend into the crowd and search for potential customers. This type of market is often an open street market with a high frequency of transactions between anonymous participants. The market permits equal access to all participants and is located near places with mixed land uses and a high concentration of activities, such as shopping centers, high streets, and transport interchanges. Eck proposes that place managers from the legitimate sphere who control and manage these locations have a particularly important role in impeding this type of market.

It should be noted that not all locations which are next to shopping malls or transport facilities, for example, will form drug markets. According to this model, places which are more likely to have drug markets will be attractive from a retail perspective, offering a balance between the spatial distribution of those who demand the product and the distance they would be required to travel to the market. This concept will be discussed further in the following section.

State Of The Art: Locational Choices And Spatial Economics

As with many crime types, open drug markets tend to concentrate geospatially: from all the available urban locations, there are very few which are well suited to illegal drug trading. Weisburd et al. (2004) found that a small number of street junctions in Jersey City (4.4 %) accounted for almost half of the drug sales arrests in the city. This demonstrates considerable spatial concentration of markets. According to Kleiman (1991 cited in Taniguchi et al. 2009) the reason for spatial clustering is that a large number of dealers operate in a single location, gaining security from arrest by spreading the risk of apprehension across all dealers. The same logic applies to customers who would prefer to be in a crowd than alone.

Rengert et al. (2005) propose that the exact location of open drug markets is likely to depend on the convergence of conditions that are most suitable for both participants involved in transactions and spatial patterns in demand. They suggest the model of “agglomeration economics” operates, as is the case with legal trade. That is, after a location becomes known as a site for specific goods, more customers will visit the area in the search of that good. At a certain point, the number of buyers that visit the area will be sufficient to support further suppliers of the product(s) and so more retailers locate there. In Wilmington, USA, researchers discovered that the likelihood of large drug markets being located near to each other is quite high. They say “there are best places to sell illegal drugs because these are places where demand is focused spatially” (Rengert 1996). That is, in order to stay profitable, a drug market’s location should be attractive enough to a sufficient number of drug users. The attractiveness of the place is partially determined by the surrounding facilities, but above all by how far a buyer is prepared to travel to make a purchase (Pettiway 1995).

In legal trading, markets for goods which are highly valuable but purchased infrequently are usually found in very accessible urban locations, which may attract many potential customers from remote locations. In contrast, local markets tend to supply items, which consumers will wish to purchase frequently but will be prepared to travel only short distances to get them. In their study, Rengert and colleagues (et al. 2005) discuss concepts from the economics literature – threshold population and range – to frame a discussion on how the demand for drugs and the distance required to reach a market likely affect the location and stability of drug markets. Threshold is defined as a minimum number of customers required for a market to stay profitable. The concept of range concerns the distance that a buyer is prepared to travel to purchase a good. Pettiway (1995) suggests that the spatial range of a market that caters for vehicular movement will be larger than one that caters for pedestrian movement. Simply put, if the demand for a drug market is situated within the physical catchment area (an area to which they do or will travel) of many potential drug buyers, that market will remain stable or may even grow.

According to this rationale, dealers will try to establish markets at locations that reduce the total distance that customers will have to travel to reach them. In order to determine the demand for drug markets, US researchers have used methods of sociodemographic profiling to identify those types of neighborhoods with the characteristics that are associated with increased risk of drug use. They propose that if a drug dealer wants to sell drugs to a local community, he must first identify possible users. If the local demand is not enough to sustain a drug market, the dealer must consider factors that would attract potential customers into the neighborhood. For example, the market should be situated in close proximity to transport facilities, which are used routinely by many potential drug addicts, or it should be accessible to modes of private transport.

Furthermore, since drug markets are established along routes which are used on a daily basis by many potential drug buyers, the location and retail characteristics of these markets can vary considerably. Depending on where users and dealers live relative to the market, drug markets are classified as neighborhood, open regional, semi-open regional, and closed regional markets (Reuter and MacCoun 1993; Eck 1994). Neighborhood markets are described as places in which both customers and dealers are from the vicinity: they might be neighbors or know each other. Open regional markets are usually established close to places which are routinely used by a large number of nonresidents, such as shopping malls. These markets are large enough to support several competing drug dealers and can secure a high frequency of transactions. Semi-open regional markets are typically established when both participants aim to lessen the risks involved in open street markets. They do not live in the same area and they only interact if they know each other or have been referred by a third person. Closed regional markets’ locations are determined by both participants of the transaction and are distributed over a wide area. The clientele of such markets are established through a network of friends and other trusted people. This type of market is the norm in wholesale drug dealing.

Alongside spatial clustering, drug markets are typically located in close vicinity to certain facilities: shopping centers (Eck 1995), high schools (Roncek and LoBosco 1983), bars (Roncek and Maier 1991), cash stores and pawnshops (Anderson 1999), transport links, train stations and highways (Eck 1994), and vacant homes (Rengert et al. 2005). Rengert and colleagues (2005) found that there are also facilities that discourage the establishment of drug markets in an area, such as police and fire stations or courts and federal buildings. Given that accessible drug dealing locations should offer good retail potential, drug marketplaces can be further classified according to the level of pedestrian and traffic accessibility, which may bring potential customers to the area. It can be suggested that, depending on a market’s geographical positioning in the city, the level of accessibility will vary – from locally to regionally accessible markets. For example, Eck (1994) found that in San Diego, outdoor drug markets formed at locations about two blocks away from major transportation arteries, suggesting that they were regionally accessible markets. Importantly, this suggests that although offenders aim to sell drugs from accessible locations, they do not tend to do so on the major roads (presumably as a way of reducing risk). That is, for regionally accessible markets, operating in close proximity to major roads may offer an acceptable balance of custom and safety. In comparison, in Philadelphia, Rengert and colleagues (2005) found a high concentration of drug markets located in the suburbs, located away from major roads, suggesting that these marketplaces are oriented to local rather than regional demand.

State Of The Art: Drug-Related Crime

The drug-crime relationship is usually examined through the theoretical perspective of a “tripartite framework” advanced by Goldstein (1985), which categorizes drug-related crime into three groups. First, there is “psychopharmacological” crime in which drug use affects aggression, thereby increasing the chance of criminal behavior. Second, there is “economic-compulsive” crime, in which crime is committed to finance drug use. Third, there is “systemic” crime, in which criminal behavior occurs in order to secure the drug supply chain, protect profits, control locations, compete for customers, or resolve conflicts of interests. A fourth category has also been proposed (Blumstein 1995 – cited in MacCoun et al. 2003; Curtis and Wendel 2000; Rengert 1996), which focuses on the negative impact of drug markets on local communities, mainly in terms of how drug dealers’ behavioral codes and manners impact on community members who are not directly related to the market, for instance, by increasing gun carrying for the purpose of self-defense or conflict resolution.

Despite extensive research on the drug-crime nexus, little is known about how drug-related crime and drug markets relate to each other geographically. Based on crime pattern theory, it is suggested that drug markets can be both crime generators and crime attractors. The former may occur due to the inherent criminality of drug markets – with those who buy or sell drugs engaging in other types of crime while they are in an area, even though they may not have travel to such locations with the intention of so doing. Even though they do not travel to such locations to commit other forms of crime, this will nevertheless affect such crime rates in the area. Apart from potential drug buyers, drug markets can attract other offenders who purposely seek out criminal opportunities. In their research, Weisburd et al. (2004) found that drug-related crime clusters spatially around drug markets. Rengert and Wasilchick (1989) state that property offenses committed by drug users are spatially concentrated in close proximity to drug markets. Moreover, ethnographic research suggests that violence against dealers is not uncommon since they possess drugs and money.

Others (Eck 1994; Reuter and MacCoun 1993) suggest that depending on the retail nature of the market (street based, indoor from fixed locations, or delivery based), levels of violence and criminal behavior differ considerably. The indoor and delivery-based methods of transaction are safer than outdoor sales, since they enjoy an established and protected territorial boundary and/or security is provided by limiting sales to a network of trusted people.

The nature of a market – local, export, public, and import – is thought to affect levels of violence. According to Reuter and MacCoun (1993), local markets have the least violence, given that there is an established network of local social ties and all market participants interact on an ongoing basis within recognized territorial boundaries. Export markets also enjoy low levels of violence, since local dealers are interested in discouraging violence in order to attract more customers from outside the local neighborhood. Public markets feature a high level of anonymous participants operating in public places and hence lack clear territorial boundaries. Due to the resultant competition and weak social ties between participants, which in turn promote potential mistrust and disagreement both between dealers and buyers and among dealers, these markets have considerable potential for violence. Import markets may feature a similar risk of violence, since neither dealers nor customers belong to the given neighborhood and the process of establishing territorial boundaries may cause dissatisfaction among local residents and tensions between dealers. As a result, conflict may arise between dealers and locals as well as between competing dealers.

“Systemic” violence, which occurs in drug markets as a means of controlling a location and competing for customers, has been investigated in relation to drug dealing gangs, who usually operate from the so-called street corners (Taniguchi et al. 2009). These street corners are financially more beneficial than other street segments due to the possibility of targeting a greater volume of passersby (Eck 1994). Consequently, gangs compete to defend and control the corners as a matter of prestige and economic gain. Scholars (Taniguchi et al. 2010) have found that there is more violence when multiple gangs operate from a single corner than when a single gang controls it. In the former scenario, violence between gangs arises from their competing interests in finding clients and establishing territorial boundaries. In comparison, when a single gang occupies a strategically positioned corner, it has an economic interest in keeping the area safe from violence in order to attract more customers (Cohen and Tita 1999; Goldstein 1985; Levitt and Venkatesh 2000 – quoted in Taniguchi et al. 2010).

Several authors (Eck and Maguire 2000; MacCoun et al. 2003) have noticed that drug markets are highly responsive and adaptive to law enforcement. They have suggested that violent behavior linked to competition may be caused by intensive law enforcement actions. The link between police activities and drug markets will be discussed in detail in the following section.

State Of The Art: Drug Markets And Law Enforcement

Apart from arresting drug dealers, one of the police’s main goals in targeting drug markets is to understand how the operational structure of these markets can be disrupted. Since drug markets cluster in relatively few locations, which also feature specific land uses which support them, crime prevention researchers (Taniguchi et al. 2010) suggest targeting specific locations instead of drug dealers. By applying the categorization of drug markets according to where dealers and buyers live, as discussed above, scholars (Reuter and MacCoun 1993) have identified the markets which are expected to be the most and least vulnerable to law enforcement activity. Local markets are, for example, the most resilient to police activities, because both participants in the transaction are from the same neighborhood with strong social ties. Consequently, if the market’s functioning is disrupted, the participants’ shared knowledge of the neighborhood allows the easy reestablishment of the market elsewhere. In contrast, public drug markets can be easily disrupted, because there will be relatively fewer locations which are well known to both dealers and buyers and which are suitable for drug transactions. Targeting these locations may be sufficient to keep drug dealers and buyers apart. However, it has been claimed that disrupting the operations of drug markets will not solve the problem, since they are highly adaptive to law enforcement and might reopen nearby or simply start trading at different times. This amounts to claims of spatial or temporal displacement (Repetto 1974). Although displacement is a common criticism of geographically focused crime prevention efforts, this concern has not been substantiated by empirical research. Furthermore, a number of studies (Clarke and Weisburd 1994; Weisburd et al. 2004) have found the reverse effect, namely, a diffusion of crime control benefits, whereby there is a reduction in the crime level in locations surrounding the area where police implemented crime prevention strategies. There are several explanations for this effect. From the perspective of agglomeration economics, “the immediate spatial diffusion is more likely than immediate spatial displacement” (Taniguchi et al. 2010). For example, it has been suggested that closing down the most profitable drug dealing location will make dealing in the neighboring locations less rather than more profitable. Dispersing the cluster of competing drug dealers will lead to a series of smaller marketplaces, each with fewer participants and drug transactions. According to this perspective, a forced change in spatial positioning can be sufficient in disrupting a drug market due to its detrimental effect on economic conditions.

Ethnographic research suggests (Weisburd et al. 2004) that after preventative interventions, drug dealers prefer to adapt their behavior and stay in the targeted area rather than move location. Both participants may implement less open modes of transaction, for instance, arranging the drug transaction time and place through mobile devices.

Weisburd and colleagues (2004) have studied the effects of geographically focused or hot-spot crime prevention strategies. Despite the widely held belief discussed above that hot-spot policing causes displacement, the researchers found no evidence on one of these. They strongly support the use of focused market targeting in police interventions since dealers resist moving away from a chosen area, as discussed above. They justify this support by emphasizing that dealers are part of the social and business community and when they relocate they may encounter violence caused by competition with established dealers in the new area. Moreover, existing networks of customers are not easily displaced to another location, since their limited geographical familiarity makes it harder to locate their dealer there. This can interrupt the supply-demand chain and hence affect the profitability of drug dealing at a particular place. This is one reason why focused hot-spot prevention may be beneficial to an area since one consequence is that reestablishing the market is likely to require effort on the part of the dealer.

Overall, researchers (Rengert 1996; Weisburd et al. 2004) are in favor of hot-spot policing, believing it to produce strong crime prevention results. Since the change in economic and physical conditions makes the location less attractive for a dealer, they have strongly suggested paying more attention to the surrounding conditions which affect the marketplace’s economic attractiveness. However, caution should be taken in generalizing these results as several crackdown studies have found evidence that a diffusion of benefits to adjacent areas may be accompanied by partial displacement of the drug scene to indoor locations, other neighborhoods, or nearby metropolitan areas.

Future Research Directions

Overall, it can be noted that there is a particular environmental balance between physical and social characteristics which facilitate the optimal grounds for establishing a drug marketplace. As has been described above, the retail chain of drug supply operates differently depending on both the spatial structure of the area and the participants’ profile. Moreover, drug markets are more likely to be located in areas with low levels of social organization. It is hard, however, to establish whether the choice of location is determined by the level of social organization or whether the social organization is undermined by the presence of a drug market. Whatever the case, the ensuing lack of legal guardianship provides, from the dealers’ perspective, valuable protection from police enforcement.

For the future research directions, it may be worth looking at geography of separate crack or heroin markets alone and on crime concentration nearby. There is an opinion that crack markets tend to be more violent than markets for other drugs, but it is not supported with any empirical evidences. Additionally, it is useful to know whether markets that offer particular types of drug that is more expensive and difficult to source are harder to stamp out for good and are more liable to displacement.

Although many researchers recognize the relationship between legitimate movement and drug markets, it is still unknown how much and what type of movement is required for the establishment of drug markets. Locational choices may, for example, be influenced by whether the market is frequented by pedestrian or vehicular traffic. A drug market which, for example, relies on vehicular traffic may need to be located in close vicinity to main roads with easy and quick access to and from the marketplace. In the case of pedestrian traffic, the market will probably be located near places where there are a sufficient number of legitimate activities which can conceal the drug transaction process. Presumably, there should be multiple escape routes, lookout points, and workarounds (Eck 1995). Since street networks influence the way people navigate towns and cities (Brantingham and Brantingham 1995; Hillier and Hanson 1984), and the street networks vary from place to another, caution should be taken when generalizing findings from one location to another. This is particularly true when comparing findings from studies conducted in automobile-based societies with regular grid-like street networks, such as America, with those from pedestrian-based societies with street networks which have grown organically, such as the UK. To be more explicit, all drug markets are not equal, and those factors that influence one type of market may be different to those that influence others. Understanding the factors that affect different types of markets would be a useful next step, and consideration of how the morphology of the street network might shape or support opportunities for drug crime would seem to be a logical starting point.

Another priority research area is the drug-crime connection. Rengert and Wasilchick (1989) discovered that offender’s search behavior is oriented towards the location of drug marketplace. They showed that drug-dependent property offenders search for potential houses to burgle on their way to purchase a drug. Despite the fact that many scholars have pointed to a significant relationship between drug use and crime, little is known about how drug-related crime patterns are associated geographically with drug markets: while those who use drugs may also commit crime, how are their spatial targeting decisions influenced by the location and type of drug markets? From a methodological perspective, it is necessary to apply appropriate crime data modeling techniques to examine the geography of criminal activities taking place in different locations and explore how potential drug users are positioned and move about within the city. Recent developments in the use of geographical information systems (GIS) allow the input, storage, merging, and analysis of geographical, statistical, and other types of datasets within a single file format. The high operational quality of these platforms enables the integration of many data formats and the construction of very large and detailed models. This means that it is possible, for example, to map drug dealing events in conjunction with sociodemographic statistics, data on land use, or crime statistics. This information can be aggregated according to different spatial units, such as the administrative boundary, ward unit, and building block. Remarkably, most of the research has focused on the patterns of drug dealing only at the area or grid-based unit of analysis. With few exceptions (e.g., Friedrich et al. 2009), drug markets have not been examined at the street segment level. Thus, in future work, it will be useful to conduct analyses using street segments as the unit of analysis. The advantage of detailing at such a fine scale of analysis allows more accurate data modeling – after all criminals do not navigate areas, they move along the streets. Moreover, from the detection and prevention perspective, it is quite useful to know the type of street segments that have a high probability of being or becoming drug dealing places and require more police attention.

Recent advances in computational methods allow very detailed modeling and analysis of data which should facilitate this sort of approach. For example, a group of researchers from Japan used a GIS platform to develop the Spatial Analysis along Networks (SANET) software. This provides a set of statistical tools that facilitate the analysis of point data with reference to the street network. The network statistics used represent a modification of numerous traditional spatial but also graph theoretical techniques. For instance, the software enables the analysis of the density of crime incidents across street segments, the shortest path between points, and the enumeration of the fraction of clustered crime incidents and so on.

The morphology of street network per se is another factor that can be informative in understanding and analyzing crime incidents within a city. Space Syntax theory (Hillier and Hanson 1984) and research discuss how the spatial properties of the street network influence the distribution of pedestrian movement patterns. Space Syntax has developed analytical tools, which using computer modeling (Depthmap software; Turner 2001) provide graphic (and quantitative) representations of the probabilities of pedestrian and traffic movement along the street segments. Namely, it estimates the accessibility levels for every street segment in relation both to its immediate surroundings (local scale) and to the whole city network (global scale). The quantifiable differences in the level of movement accessibility between different locations enable testing statistically why particular locations are prone to crime.

In conclusion, it should be emphasized that illegal drug markets are difficult and multidimensional problems involving many social and spatial factors. Mechanisms of illicit retail may vary from country to country, and so the theoretical frameworks described in this research paper require further testing to determine the extent to which they do and do not apply in other cultural contexts. Methodological and computational advances offer the opportunity to do so and will likely provide new insight into patterns of drug crime.

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