Homicide Trends and Illicit Drug Markets: Exploring Differences Across Time

Abstract

Ample speculation and some evidence suggests that the decline in homicide rates since the early 1990s was partially attributable to declining levels of drug market activity. This analysis explores that explanation, along with an alternative: the strength of the drug market-lethal violence relationship has weakened over time. We outline several conceptual reasons to expect period-specific differences in the drug market-homicide relationship. These include the aging of market participants, shifts in the normative and transactional climate of markets, and changes in structural factors affecting the magnitude of the relationship between drug market indicators and homicide rates (such as socioeconomic disadvantage). These arguments are evaluated for a sample of large US cities. The results generally show a pattern of attenuation in the drug markethomicide relationship and lead us to conclude that part of the homicide decline is likely due to a drop in the amount of drug market activity, some of it is attributable to the aging of drug market participants, and some appears to be due to unmeasured factors which may have created a "kinder and gentler" drug market.

Assessing the Impact of Drug Use and Drug Selling on Violent Offending in a Panel of Delinquent Youth

“…The more often a participant sells drugs, the higher his or her likelihood of ever committing any violent offense. These findings agree with other studies showing a relationship between drug selling and violence (Fagan & Chin, 1990; Ousey & Lee, 2007; Thornberry et al, 2003). Gang membership is highly significant and positive in all seven models, a finding that is hardly surprising.…”

“…Even so, we can be confident in concluding that increases in an individual’s frequency of drug selling increase that individual’s violent offending. This conclusion comports with Goldstein’s (1985) suggestion that the illicit drug markets are settings where violence is intrinsic, a notion supported widely in the literature (Baumer et al, 1998; Black, 1983; Fagan & Chin, 1990; Ousey & Lee, 2004, 2007). …”

“…However, the notion that drug offenses (use, sales, and the like) cause other forms of crime holds primacy in research and policy. Goldstein’s (1985) tripartite framework, for example, became a foundation for much of the subsequent research in drugs and violence, lending credence to the individual-level relationship (Baumer, 1994; Baumer, Lauritsen, Rosenfeld, & Wright, 1998; Brownstein, Shiledar Baxi, Goldstein, & Ryan, 1992; Fagan & Chin, 1990; Johnson, Golub, & Dunlap, 2000) as well as aggregate-level consequences (Fagan, Zimring, & Kim, 1998; Ousey & Lee, 2004, 2007). …”

Crime Trends and Debates

“…Ousey and Lee (2007) argue that the violent crime decline can be attributed not only to the subsiding of drug markets, but also to the attenuation of the drug market-lethal violence relationship, which had created a "kinder and gentler" drug market than that of the 1980s and early 1990s. Specifically, as marijuana became the drug of choice among young drug users in the 1990s, the crack-using population became increasingly characterized by older, less impulsive, and less violent individuals compared with their younger counterparts during the peak of the "crack era" in the late 1980s (see Johnson et al, 2000).…”

“…Consequently, the growth in the crack-cocaine market is purported to have increased violent crime because it heightened the use of informal and violent forms of conflict resolution. Beyond this, crack-cocaine transactions are likely to transpire between strangers, a characteristic that may heighten feelings of suspicion and lead to a "shoot first and ask questions later" mentality (Ousey and Lee, 2007). More importantly, intensified law enforcement efforts that incarcerated early forerunners of crack markets created a 'replacement effect,' whereby younger and more inexperienced individuals took over control of crack-cocaine markets.…”