Tammy L. Anderson

Dimensions of women’s power in the illicit drug economy:

The purpose of this article is to elaborate on the gendered social and economic organization of the illicit drug world by articulating several dimensions of women’s power. The main thesis is that women are not only powerful actors in the drug world, but that their work is central to the drug economy. Four core activities (e.g. providing housing and sustenance needs, purchasing drugs, subsidizing male dependency and participating in drug sales) that women routinely perform are both fundamental to drug world organization and earn them important forms of capital that may facilitate future, conventional pursuits. Pursuing this objective may improve our knowledge about the relationship between illegal market organization, gender, power and capital. It may also assist crime control and social welfare policies.

The drug career of the older injector

Drug theorists have used the concept of a “career” to understand why some individuals enter and become deeply entrenched in a life organized around illicit drug-use. Previously career analyses have focussed on the lives and activities of chronic users at youth and middle age. We extend this work by examining the drug careers of life-long drug injectors (injection drug users, IDUs) of age 50 and more. Based on in-depth interviews with 40 active injectors between ages 50 and 68, we explore the interactional effects of aging and drug-use as they affect the lives of older injectors on the streets. We show that age forms a career contingency with the power to realign former roles and relationships. Retiring from the life career of chronic users seems doubtful for older users except through illness and death. Our findings point to the developmental aspects of a drug-dependent life style and why patterns and practices of drug-use change over time.

Solidarity and Drug Use in The Electronic Dance Music Scene

Current research and theory on rave culture has articulated a link between solidarity and drug use, although the precise nature of this relationship remains unclear. Work conducted in the field of cultural studies contends that while rave participants engage in drug use, it is by no means the exclusive source of solidarity. However, work in the fields of public health and medical science portrays rave culture as a site of extensive drug consumption and personal risk, where solidarity is dismissed or dubiously acknowledged as chemically induced. Prior research has not sought to reconcile this tension, or to consider how the relationship between drug use and solidarity may have changed over time. Using data from a multimethod ethnography of the rave scene in Philadelphia, we found the drug use–solidarity relationship substantially more complicated than prior scholarship has articulated. Our discoveries, consequently, provide clarification of this relationship as well as advance the literatures on solidarity, collective identity, youth culture, and music scenes.

Drug-Related Identity Change: Theoretical Development and Empirical Assessment

Our study targets an understanding of the drug-related identity change process, which may offer important sociological insights into the etiology of drug abuse. Our work is grounded in symbolic interactionism, cultural studies, and an extant drug-identity model (Anderson 1994). We use a quantitative survey instrument and retrospective accounts to test our model with a representative sample of white and black females and males seeking treatment for drug abuse in mid-Michigan. Our data show that for many drug-related identity change began in childhood and early adolescence with marginalizing experiences that helped create ego identity discomfort and lost control in defining an identity before drug use. Identification with a drug subculture offered alternative identities to resolve such predicaments. Additionally, we found that identification with a drug subculture significantly reduced ego identity discomfort during drug use, which, thereby, substantiates the claim that subcultures can act as solutions to individual problems and predicaments.

The Impact of Drug Use and Crime Involvement on Health Problems Among Female Drug Offenders

Health problems comprise some of the most important concerns about female offenders today. In comparison to others, they suffer more frequent and serious chronic disease, acute illness, and injuries. Although many have argued that these higher rates can be explained by poverty, inaccessible medical care, and poor nutrition, few have studied the impact of the severity of criminal and substance abuse involvement on the same. Consequently, the authors ask if these factors help explain the likelihood of leading health problems of female cocaine-abusing offenders. Bivariate logistic regression analyses on women (n = 848) from Dade County, Florida, show important effects of criminal and substance abuse involvement on chronic disease and illness, sexually transmitted diseases and HIV/AIDS, and mental illness. However, after controlling for demographic variables with multivariate logistic models, their predictive power decreases substantially. The findings lend insights to both theoretical models explaining health problems and to policy recommendations for female offenders and inmates.

Development, gender, and crime: The scope of the routine activities approach

In the past 15 years, the routine activities approach has gained considerable popularity in explaining crime rates. Its explanations are offered, however, without considering the approachs theoretical scope. Recent research suggests that the explanatory power of the perspective might differ across level of economic development and mens and womens arrest rates. To address the issue of theoretical applicability, separate regression equations are estimated for the scope conditions of development and gender, using cross-national time-series analyses. The findings suggest that the explanatory power differs when the scope conditions of development and gender are applied. The routine activities approach appears to explain minor theft arrest rates most accurately for men in developed nations. In less developed nations, none of the four routine activities indicators showed a relationship with mens theft arrest rates. Two indicators, motivation and guardianship, evidenced a relationship with womens minor theft...

Welfare Reform and Housing: Assessing the Impact to Substance Abusers

The addiction disability (Supplemental Security Income and Social Security Disability Income program for drug abuse and alcoholism) was terminated by Congress in December 1996 as part of the Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity Reconciliation Act of 1996 (PRWORA). Discussions about welfare reform policies in the latter 20th century have centered on Aid to Families with Dependent Children (AFDC) receipt by the general population. Far less attention has been paid to programs such as the addiction disability that were also affected by the PRWORA. Our purpose is to study the effect of this policy change on the housing status of former addiction disability recipients and to also explore whether and how disruptions in living situations increased risks for drug and alcohol use, criminal participation and victimization. We utilize insights from two major sociological theories of housing or homelessness, i.e., individualistic and structural, to guide our exploration of the policys impact on housing. A qualitative analysis, featuring in-depth interviews with 101, nonrandomly selected former recipients revealed that disability benefits promoted housing autonomy, successful cohabitation, and overall housing stability. The termination of benefits, at a time of diminishing social services (e.g., cash and housing assistance) and a housing market explosion, increased various types of homelessness for respondents and dependency on family and friends. Such negative living outcomes, in turn, further escalated the risk of drug and alcohol use, criminal participation, and victimization. Individual-level factors also complicated the matter. Implications for research and policy are discussed.

Clubbing Masculinities and Crime: A Qualitative Study of Philadelphia Nightclub Scenes

The purpose of our article is to explore the relationship between masculinities and crime within the hip-hop (HH) and electronic dance music (EDM) nightclub scenes in Philadelphia. Given extant theory and research showing gender is a situated performance,the social context of the nightclub setting offers an important opportunity to contribute to the ever-growing masculinities and crime literature because it is an understudied setting populated by atypical offenders. Direct observation of 33 club events and interviews with 24 male clubbers yielded three important patterns: (a) Men with consistently high masculinities (hypermasculine types) reported the most frequent involvement in nightclub crime, (b) men with consistently low masculinity scores reported the least involvement, and (c) men with variable masculinity scores put on a more hypermasculine identity while clubbing, leading them to engage in nightclub crime. Contextual factors, such as excessive alcohol use, heightened sexuality, competitiveness, and commercialism, explain this more nuanced relationship between masculinity and crime.

Drug Identity Change Processes, Race, and Gender. I. Explanations of Drug Misuse and a New Identity-Based Model

The present paper explores race and gender differences in a recent theoretical model (Anderson, 1994), consisting of several micro- and macrofactors, that helps explain the identity-related processes of drug misuse. The approach is qualitative, featuring in-depth interviewing with 45 self-identified drug addicts. The study uncovered support for the general concepts of the identity-based model across four subgroups: Black females, White females, Black males, and White males. However, important race and gender differences emerged. Gender and race-related socialization and stratification explain most of the differences and suggest reconceptualization of the model. The investigation further demonstrates the promise of identity-based approaches in extending our knowledge of the etiology of drug misuse and related intervention policies.

Types of Identity Transformation in Drug-Using and Recovery Careers

Abstract The literature about types of identity transformation is relatively scant compared to that documenting the processes leading to identity change. Using an interactionist perspective, this study of currently sober drug addicts explores what types of transformations are experienced during “drug-using” and “recovery” careers. Intensive interviews were conducted during the Summer and Fall of 1990 with a purposive sample of drug addicts (n=30) active in 12-Step programs of Narcotics Anonymous (N.A.) and Alcoholics Anonymous (A.A.) in the Washington, D.C. metropolitan area. Findings reveal a new type of identity transformation (i.e., temporary conversion) resulting from drug euphoria and also uncover other extant types of transformation (i.e., alteration and conversion) that were unexpected with this pool of respondents active in the N.A. and A.A. Identity Transformation Organizations. Implications for interactionist and drug addiction research are discussed.