Dealers, Thieves, and the Common Determinants of Drug and Nondrug Illegal Earnings

Bibliographic Data

ID9680249
AuthorsMelissa Thompson (0000-0003-1090-0312, Portland State University, corresponding author), Christopher Uggen (0000-0003-3231-5632, University of Minnesota)
Year2012
Volume50
Issue4
Pages1057-1087
Publication date2012-11-01
Peer ReviewedYes
Open AccessYes
TypeARTICLE
VenueCriminology (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 0011-1384 • E-ISSN: 1745-9125
PublisherWiley (PUBLISHER • GB)
DOI10.1111/j.1745-9125.2012.00286.x
OpenAlexW2169868760
LanguageEN
Citations received10
References cited68

Drug crime often is viewed as distinctive from other types of crime, meriting greater or lesser punishment. In view of this special status, this article asks whether and how illegal earnings attainment differs between drug sales and other forms of economic crime. We estimate monthly illegal earnings with fixed‐effects models, based on data from the National Supported Work Demonstration Project and the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth. Although drug sales clearly differ from other types of income‐generating crime, we find few differences in their determinants. For example, the use of cocaine or heroin increases illegal earnings from both drug and nondrug crimes, indicating some degree of fungibility in the sources of illegal income. More generally, the same set of factors—particularly legal and illegal opportunities and embeddedness in criminal and conventional networks—predicts both drug earnings and nondrug illegal earnings

Business · Criminology · Earnings · Economics · Embeddedness · Punishment (psychology · Sociology · Crime Patterns and Interventions · Crime, Illicit Activities, and Governance · Finance · HIV, Drug Use, Sexual Risk · Psychology · Social Psychology

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