These days, drug dealing is the most profitable business. The system is developed in all countries and through the world, and it is impossible to stop the process. The age of drug dealers is different, the most shocking is that a great number of teenagers are involved in the process. They do not only consume drugs and distribute them in their environment, but often build “successful dealer’s careers”. According to the book by Williams, “teenagers can be sophisticated cocaine distributors, wholesalers and retail sellers. Their work has been essential to the growth of a major industry” (10). In order to prevent the growth of this industry, sociologists and criminologists study a criminal behavior and psychology of drug sellers and provide theories to explain them. One of the major questions explored is the question of motivation that makes teens enter the world of drug dealing and leave it. Another important question is what conditions impel them to sell drugs. A number of theories can be applied in order to explain the drug dealers’ behavior. In this work, we will discuss criminal theories that are relevant to explain the behavior of teens involved in the drug dealing industry from the book by Terry Williams The Cocaine Kids: The Inside Story of a Teenage Drug Ring. These theories are Merton’s theory of social structure and anomie, Adlerian theory, Social disorganization theory, Strain theory and Cultural deviance theory.
The book by terry Williams is devoted to the exploration of the world of teenage drug dealers. The authors spent with “Cocaine Kids” several years and he explored that world from the insight. The book presents the teenager’s stories. The main focus of the book was on the reasons why Kids entered the world of drugs, how they led their business and what made them abandon it. The author says that the world he entered was a “complex, miniature society with institutions, laws, morality, language, codes of behavior all its own” (Williams 8). The main motivation was to make crazy money in any way. Kids united into gangs, however, “involvement in organized drug dealing was personal rather than gang oriented, was also true for other profitable crime” (McShane and Williams 143). Usually, teens came from families with incomes below the poverty line and entered the world of cocaine to get a job, “the drug business is a “safety net” of sorts” (Williams 8). They also were attracted by the possibility to make really big money and become “meaningful personalities”. The opportunities that the world offered them were amazing from their point of view: they could have prestige, reward and even fame of its kind. All the things they could not even dream about and attain from the regular economy. As Williams says, “it is also a way of confronting their own anxiety by poking fun at the idea of growing up and a steppingstone to the realities of surviving in the large world” (11, 131). At the same time, the author presents the reasons why teens left the “business”. The author indicates that the main motivation was a desire to start a new life. Each person had his/her own goals and objectives, “It is clear that the kids who left the business were those who had a stake in something: Max had a wife, a house and money; Masterrap a job and a steady girlfriend; Splib a wife and a new baby…” (Williams 131). Thus, beyond their personal wishes and reasons to enter or to leave the world of drugs was one major motivation to enhance life and social status.
According to J Robert Lilly, Francis T. Cullen most Americans almost have no difficulties in defining reasons that cause people to engage in crimes and drug dealing. When surveyors ask citizens about these causes, only few people answered that they “had no options”, “the remainder of those polled usually remark that crime is caused factors such as unemployment, bad family life, and lenient courts” (3). Criminal theories of crime behavior are aimed at understanding, explanation of the social behavior and providing recopies for appropriate respond actions. The motivations and actions of teenage drug dealers form the book by Williams can be explained by a number of criminological theories. The first one is a Social Structure theory which deals with the environmental and social aspects. It can be separated in three mini theories. So, Williams indicates that the majority of kids came from the families with low incomes and some teens even abandoned school for the sake of their “business”. Thus, a social disorganization theory can explain their motivation to enter the world of drugs. It focuses on “the urban conditions that effect crime rates” (Dechant n. pg.). The theory suggests that the reason of antisocial behavior is the disorganization of social structures that leads to the fact that they stop performing their main function. As a result, the unemployment rises and schools dropout rates, there is also a big number of single parents. Consequently, “Residents in these areas experience conflict and despair, and as a result, antisocial behavior flourishes” (Dechant n. pg.). The next is a strain theory that states that crime is a result of a conflict between one’s goals and possibilities. The Kids were from the lower class and, according to the theory, “members of the lower class are unable to achieve [symbols of] success through conventional means” (Dechant n. pg.). This is one of the main motivations for people to enter the world of drug dealing and the main condition that impel them to sell drugs. The third mini theory is the cultural deviance theory which establishes that, “criminal behavior is an expression of conformity to lower class sub-culture values and traditions, not a rebellion against traditional society” (Dechant n. pg.). Kids had different backgrounds and were representatives of a cultural minority. They had their own society with its laws and rules. Their society was not contradictory to a traditional one. Thus, a social structure theory explains the motivation and behavior of the drug sellers.
Another theory that can explain the behavior of drug dealers is the Merton’s anomie theory. It is very close to the Social structure theory. It indicates that there can be a conflict between socially accepted and norms. Merton used the term anomie to describe the difference between socially accepted personal goals and availability of means to reach them (Anomie Theory n.pg). The major goal of Americans is the wealth, but not all people can attain it, especially the representatives of the disadvantaged groups. Personalities, who find that they have no ways to reach wealth, can experience anomie. When it occurs, those people can reveal deviant behavior to reach their goals. This is a situation that Williams describes in his book about “cocaine kids”. Every of them became drug dealers in order to overcome poverty and reach their goals to live in wealth. They understood that their social status and family incomes hardly could help them elevate their social status and become rich, so they “expressed a deviant behavior”.
One more theory that explains the behavior of drug dealers is Adlerian theory. It explains a psychological side of it. According to this theory, “drug dealers/smugglers exhibit elevated self-esteem and increased feelings of power, and thus receive ego gratification from perceived elevated social status in the community” (Highland and Dabney 110). Thus, drug dealing increased kids’ feeling of power and superiority and supported their self-esteem.
Williams also explains the reasons why kids left the business. These reasons can also be explained with the help of the mentioned theories. The teens who left drug dealing achieved their goals and had other purposes in life. Some of them had money, others changed their priorities and had families or entered educational establishments. Thus, drug dealing was just a means to achieve other goals.
The book by terry Williams presents lives of teens engaged in drug dealing and explains their motivations to enter and leave the world of drugs. These motivations and behavior of drug dealers can be understood and explain with the number of criminological theories, such as social Structure theory, Merton’s anomie theory and Adler’s theory. All these theories suggest that the main reason to be involved in drug dealing and, at the same time, abandon it, is a desire to achieve social status and elevate self-esteem.
References
Dechant, Arista B. The Psychology of Criminal Behaviour: Theories from Past to Present. Liberal 2009, Web.
Highland, Richard A., and Dean A. Dabney. Using Adlerian Theory to Shed Light on Drug Dealer Motivatations. Applied Psychology in Criminal Justice, 2009: 5(2): 109-138.
How does anomie theory explain deviant behavior? CliffsNotes.com., 2010. Web
Lilly, J. Robert, Francis T. Cullen, and Richard A. Ball. Criminological Theory: Context and Consequences. 4th ed. Thousand Oaks, Calif.: Sage Publications, 2007.
McShane, Marilyn D., and Franklin P. Williams. Encyclopedia of Juvenile Justice. London:SAGE, 2003.
Williams, Terry. The Cocaine Kids: The Inside Story of a Teenage Drug Ring. Cambridge, Mass.: Da Capo Press, 1989.