1Researching CrackDealersDilemmas and Contradictions

Bruce A. Jacobs

“Yo, Bruce, come on down the set [neigh-borhood]. Meet where we usually do,” Lu-ther said, and hung up the phone.1 A trustedcontact for an ongoing study of street-levelcrack dealers and a crack dealer himself, Ihad no reason to question him. “Just anotherinterview,” I thought. Notebooks and filefolders in hand, I went to the bank, withdrewfifty dollars for subject payments, and drovefifteen minutes to the dope set I was comingto know so well.

Luther flagged me down as I turned thecorner. The seventeen-year-old high schooldrop-out opened the door and jumped in.“Swerve over there.” He pointed to a parkingspace behind the dilapidated three-storyapartment building he called home. “Stopthe car—turn it off.” Nothing out of the ordi-nary; over the previous three months, weoften would sit and talk for a while before ac-tually going to an interview. This time,though, there was an urgency in his voice Ishould have detected but did not. He pro-duced a pistol from under a baggy white T-shirt. “Gimme all your fuckin’ money or I’llblow your motherfuckin’ head off!”

“What the fuck’s your problem?” I said, as-tonished that someone I trusted had sud-denly turned on me. The gun was large, a six-shooter, probably a long-barrel .45. It wasugly and old looking. Most of its chrome hadbeen scratched off. Its black handle waspockmarked from years of abuse. Why washe doing this? How did I get myself into thissituation? It was the kind of thing you hearabout on the evening news but don’t expect

to confront, even though I knew studying ac-tive offenders risked such a possibility.

I frantically pondered a course of actionas Luther’s tone became more and more hos-tile. He was sweating. “Just calm down, Lu-ther, just calm down—everything’s cool,” Itrembled. “Don’t shoot—I’ll give you whatyou want.” “Gimme all your fuckin’ money!”he repeated. “I ain’t fuckin’ around—I’llwaste you right here!” I reached in my left-hand pocket for the fifty dollars and handedit over. As I did so, I cupped my right handprecariously an inch from the muzzle of hisgun, which was pointing directly into my ab-domen. I can survive a gunshot, I thought tomyself, as long as I slow the bullet down.

He snatched the five, crisp ten-dollar billsand made a quick search of the vehicle’s stor-age areas to see if I was holding out. “OK,” hesaid, satisfied there were no more funds.“Now turn your head around.” I gazed at himinquisitively. “Turn your motherfuckin’ headaround!” For all I knew, he was going toshoot and run; his right hand was poised onthe door handle, his left on the trigger. “Justtake your money, man, I’m not gonna do any-thing.” “Turn the fuck around!” he snapped.“OK,” I implored, “I won’t look, just lemmeput my hand over my eyes.” I left small open-ings between my fingers to see what he wasreally going to do. If he were truly going tofire, which he appeared to be intent ondoing—the gun was being raised from thedown-low position in which it had been dur-ing the entire encounter to right below headlevel—I would smack the gun upward, jumpout of the car, and run a half block to the rela-tive safety of a commercial street.

As I pondered escape routes, he jammedthe gun into his pants as quickly as he haddrawn it, flung open the door, and disap-peared behind the tenements. I hit the igni-tion and drove slowly and methodically fromthe scene, grateful to have escaped injury,but awestruck by his brazen violation oftrust. All I could do was look back and won-der why.

If this were the end of the story, thingswould have normalized, I would havelearned a lesson about field research, and Iwould have gone about my business. But Lu-ther was not through. Over the next six

1

weeks, he called my apartment five to tentimes a day, five days a week, harassing,taunting, irritating, baiting me. Perhapstwice over that six-week period, I actuallypicked up the phone—only to find out it washe and hang up. Luther would call right backand let the phone ring incessantly, knowing Iwas there and letting the answering machinedo the dirty work. On several occasions, itbecame so bad that I had to disconnect theline and leave the apartment for severalhours.

I’d arrive home to see the answering ma-chine lit up with messages. “I can smell themousse in your hair—huh, huh, huh,” hissinister laugh echoing through the apart-ment. “I know you’re there, pick it up.” Moreoften than not, I would hear annoying dialtones. One message, however, caught my un-divided attention: “897 Longacre—huh, huh,huh,” he laughed as I heard him flippingthrough the phone book pages and identify-ing my address. “We’ l l [he and hishomeboys] be over tomorrow.” I didn’t sleepwell that night or for the next six weeks.

What was I to do—report the robbery, andgo to court and testify to stop what had be-come tele-stalking? Some researchers con-tend that when crimes against fieldworkersoccur, staff are to “report them to the policeto indicate that such violations will haveconsequences.”2 I did not feel I had this op-tion. Calling the authorities, no matter howmuch I wanted to, would not only have en-dangered future research with Luther’s setand those connected to it, but would alsohave risked retaliation—since Luther’shomies knew where I lived and worked.

So I called the phone company and gotcaller ID, call return, and call block. Thesedevices succeeded in providing his phonenumber and residence name, which I used totrace his actual address, but I could still donothing to stop him. Changing my numberwas the last thing I wanted to do, becausethose who smell fear often attack. As otherresearchers have noted, concern about “vio-lence may cause ethnographers to appearafraid or react inappropriately to commonstreet situations and dangers . . . .Fearful be-havior is easily inferred by violent persons”and may often lead to violence itself.3 Thus,

Berk and Adams stress the importance ofmaintaining one’s cool when threatened:“The investigator will be constantly watchedand tested by the very people he is studying.This is especially true [with] delinquentswho . . .value poise in the face of danger.”4

Danger, it must be remembered, is “inher-ent” in fieldwork with active offenders, “iffor no other reason than there is always thepossibility of dangerous cultural misunder-standings arising between researchers andsubjects.”5 This is especially true of researchamong active streetcorner crack sellers, whoroutinely use violence or threats of violenceto gain complicity.6

After enduring six weeks of this post-rob-bery harassment, and with no end in sight, Ihad to do something. I called the police andtold them the story. An officer came out andlistened to messages I had saved. As he lis-tened, the telephone rang, and Luther’s num-ber displayed on the caller ID. “Do you wantme to talk to him?” the officer asked sternly.“No,” I replied, feeling more confident with acop three feet away. “Lemme see if I canwork things out.” I picked up the phone andstarted talking.

“What do you want?”“Why do you keep hangin’ up on me? All I

want is to talk.”“What do you expect me to do, like you?

[sardonically, on the verge of losing it]. Youfuckin’ robbed me and I trusted you and nowyou call me and leave these fuckin’ messagesand you want me to talk to you? [incredu-lous]”

“I only did that ’cause you fucked me over.I only ganked [robbed] you ’cause you fuckedme.”

“What are you talking about?”He proceeded to explain that without him,

none of the forty interviews I obtained wouldhave been possible. True, Luther was thefirst field contact to believe that I was a re-searcher, not a cop. He was my first respon-dent, and he was responsible for starting asnowball of referrals on his word that I was“cool.”7 But after he could no longer providereferrals, I moved on, using his contacts tofind new ones and eliminating him from thechain. My newfound independence was in-explicable to him and a slap in the face. He

2 ✦ Introduction to Ethnographic Research . . .

wanted vengeance; the robbery and tauntingwere exactly that.8

Ethnography and Social Distance?Such are the risks ethnographers take

when studying dangerous, unstable offend-ers. Although “robbery, burglary, and theftfrom field staff are uncommon, [they] dooccur. In fact, many crack distributors arefrequent and proficient robbers, burglars,and thieves.”9 Not so ironically, someone Ihad trusted and considered a “protector”10

had become someone to be protected from.Such flip-flops are entirely possible in theworld of active offenders, who themselvesoften admit an inability to control or under-stand their behavior.

All of this merely underscores the change-able, unpredictable nature of fieldwork rela-tions, especially with active offenders. John-son notes that “[i]t is incumbent on theinvestigator to assess the influences of thesechanges.”11 The important point is for re-searchers to put themselves in a positionwhere they can do this. Unfortunately, thevery nature of criminological fieldwork maywork against this.

Much of the problem revolves around thedilemma between social distance and im-mersion in fieldwork, and the difficulty re-searchers have in resolving it. The notion of“social distance” is thought to be in someways foreign to the ethnographic enterprise.Wolff, for example, contends that successfulfieldwork inevitably requires surrender—psychological, social, and otherwise—to thesetting, culture, and respondents one isstudying. It requires “total involvement, sus-pension of received notions, pertinence ofeverything, identification, and risk of beinghurt.”12 Ethnographers are advised to im-merse themselves in the native scene,13 to be-come a member of what they are studying.14

They are told to become an actual physicaland moral part of the setting.15 As Berk andAdams put it, “The greater the social dis-tance between the participant observer andthe subjects, the greater the difficulty in es-tablishing and maintaining rapport.”16

Building rapport with active offenderstypically becomes more difficult, though, as

the “deviantness” of the population one stud-ies increases.1 7 With any offenderpopulation, trying to become “one of them”too quickly can be downright harmful. Somecontend that the most egregious error afieldworker can make is to assume that thefieldworker can gain the immediate favor ofhis or her hosts by telling them that he or shewants to “‘become one of them’ or by imply-ing, by word or act, that the fact that they tol-erate his [or her] presence means that he [orshe] is one of them.”18 Similarly, Polskywarns that “you damned well better not pre-tend to be ‘one of them,’ because they willtest this claim out and one of two things willhappen. Either the researcher will get drawninto participating in actions one would oth-erwise not engage in, or the researcher couldbe exposed as a result of not doing so, the lat-ter having perhaps even greater negative re-percussions.”19 The more attached the re-searcher gets too early in the process, themore vulnerable she or he may be to exploi-tation. The researcher is still a researcher, nomatter how close the researcher thinks sheor he is getting. Subjects know this and mayalso know there will be few if any serious re-percussions if they try to pull something, es-pecially at the beginning of research whenthe fieldworker tends to be the most desper-ate for acceptance. Problems are only com-pounded by the fact that researchers tend tobe far more streetwise by the end of field-work than they are at the beginning. Perhapsthe least important time to be streetwise is atthe end; both the number and seriousness ofthreats tend to decline with time. Wherethreats are often highest—at the beginning,when the researcher may be labeled a narc, aspy, or simply a suspicious character—theresearcher may also be least capable of han-dling them. This only makes the threats thatdo materialize more threatening.

Researchers who are victimized at thisearly stage may often be barred from report-ing it; doing so threatens to breach promisesof confidentiality and anonymity made tosubjects. The practical matter of being la-beled a narc who “sold someone out” is a sep-arate issue and potentially more problem-atic: snitching violates a sacred norm ofstreet etiquette, even if the person being

Chapter 1 ✦ Researching Crack Dealers 3

snitched on is in the wrong. At best, snitch-ing will terminate future chains of respon-dents. At worst, it will label the researcher a“rat” and subject him or her to street justice.Both outcomes are of course undesirableand will likely bring an end to one’s research.

Being immersed while remaining to somedegree objective is the key. Some researchersstress the importance of using “interactionaldevices and strategies that allow thefieldworker to stay on the edges of unfoldingsocial scenes rather than being drawn intotheir midst as a central actor.”20 Others rec-ommend engaging in a paradoxical and “pe-culiar combination of engrossment and dis-tance.”21 Like the Simmelian stranger,researchers are told to be familiar yet not toofamiliar, involved yet not too involved, all thewhile making the balance seem natural.22

Some modicum of social distance is thuscritical to the ethnographic enterprise—“asa corrective to bias and overrapport broughton by too strong an identification with thosestudied.”23

In some sense, then, social distance be-tween the researcher and the active offend-ers she or he studies can be beneficial. AsWright and Decker observe, “[T]he secrecyinherent in criminal work means that of-fenders have few opportunities to discusstheir activities with anyone besides associ-ates, a matter which many find frustrat-ing.”24 By definition, criminal respondentswill often have “certain knowledge and skillsthat the researcher does not have.”25 Thisasymmetry may empower them to open upor to open up sooner than they otherwisewould. Offenders may enjoy speaking abouttheir criminal experiences with someonewho is “straight.” Perhaps it is a satisfactiongained from teaching someone supposedlysmarter than they, at least in terms of aca-demic degrees. The fact that respondentsmay see something in the research that bene-fits them, or an opportunity to correct faultyimpressions of what it is they actually do,26

only facilitates these dynamics.All of it may come down to dramaturgy.

Yet, the very nature of criminological field-work dictates that the researcher either can’tor won’t “act” in certain ways at certaintimes. Acting inappropriately can compro-

mise the research itself, the fieldworker’sability to remain in the setting, or the abilityto remain there safely. The moral and practi-cal conundrum between social distance, im-mersion, and “participant” observation incriminological fieldwork may, in many ways,be unresolvable.

My failure to manage the distance, im-mersion dialectic with Luther appeared tohave more to do with a practical shortfall inmanaging informant relations—a myopia ifyou will—than with going native. Clearly, Ihad lost objectivity in the process of “han-dling” Luther. Whether this was a function ofoverimmersion is open to question, but it un-doubtedly played some role. Whether it wasavoidable is also open to question, particu-larly when one considers the practical andmethodological paradoxes involved in field-work with active offenders. Although myo-pic (mis)management led to my exploitationby Luther, without putting myself in such aposition, I would never have been able to col-lect the data I did. In many ways, the “short-fall” was necessary and, at some level, advan-tageous.

The bottom line is that no matter how deftthe fieldworker is at managing relations, heor she ultimately never gains total control.Criminological fieldworkers exist in a de-pendent relationship with their subjects.27

This makes one wonder who is indeed the“subject” and what he or she can be “subjectto” at any given moment. Some contend thatthe hierarchical relationship between inter-viewer and subject in social research is“morally indefensible”28 and should bethrown out. Perhaps the hierarchy may bejettisoned as a matter of course, by the verynature of the fieldworker-active offender re-lationship. Luther’s actions toward me standas an exemplary case.29

Studying Active OffendersStudying active drug dealers is problem-

atic precisely because their activity is crimi-nal. Active offenders are generally “hard tolocate because they find it necessary to leadclandestine lives. Once located, they are re-luctant, for similar reasons, to give accurateand truthful information about them-selves.”30 “Outsiders” are often perceived as

4 ✦ Introduction to Ethnographic Research . . .

narcs seeking to obtain damaging evidencefor juridical purposes.31 Indeed, the mostcommon suspicion that subjects have aboutfieldworkers is that they are spies of somesort. As Sluka notes, “It is difficult to find an[ethnographer] who has done fieldwork whohas not encountered this suspicion.”32

Collecting data from drug dealers, partic-ularly from active ones, is likely to be diffi-cult and dangerous unless one can constructfriendships within a dealing community.33

Because of this difficulty, some researcherstarget institutional settings.34 Such settingsafford the chance of obtaining data withoutthe risk of physical harm associated with“street” interviews.35 Unfortunately, collect-ing valid and reliable data in such settingsmay not be entirely possible, as criminolo-gists have “long suspected that offenders donot behave naturally” in them.36 Sutherlandand Cressey argue that “[t]hose who havehad intimate contacts with criminals ‘in theopen’ know that criminals are not ‘natural’ inpolice stations, courts, and prisons and thatthey must be studied in their everyday lifeoutside of institutions if they are to be under-stood.”37 Polsky is more emphatic, com-menting that “we can no longer afford theconvenient fiction that in studying criminalsin their natural habitat, we . . .discover noth-ing really important that [cannot] be discov-ered from criminals behind bars. What istrue for studying the gorilla of zoology islikely to be even truer for studying the gorillaof criminology.”38 There are fundamentalqualitative differences between the twotypes of offenders. Institutionalized drugdealers, for example, may represent thosenot sophisticated or skilled enough to pre-vent apprehension, or those who simply donot care about getting caught and who sell toanyone with money. Studies of incarceratedoffenders are thus open to the charge ofbeing based on “unsuccessful criminals, onthe supposition that successful criminals arenot apprehended or are at least able to avoidincarceration.” This weakness is “the mostcentral bogeyman in the criminologist’s de-monology.”39

Knowing this, I entered the field andbegan frequenting a district near a majoruniversity that is both prestigious and ex-

pensive, yet which borders a dilapidatedneighborhood with a concentrated AfricanAmerican population and heavy crack sales.A lively commercial district, with restau-rants, quaint cafes, bars, theaters, andstores, splits the two. The area is known forracial and ethnic diversity, making it rela-tively easy for most anyone to blend in. Overa nine-month period, I frequented the areaand made myself familiar to the regularcrowd of hangers-out in the dividing com-mercial district. Some of these individualswere marginally homeless and spent entiredays in the district smoking, drinking, play-ing music, and begging. Though not crackdealers themselves, they knew who the deal-ers were and where they worked. After gain-ing their trust, I was shown the dealers’ con-gregation spots and quickly took to the area.

At first, I would simply walk by, not explic-itly acknowledging that anything was goingon. Sometimes I would be escorted by one ofthe “vagabonds,” but most of the time I wentalone. My objective was simply to let dealerssee me. Over the days and weeks, I walked ordrove through slowly to gain recognition,trying to capitalize on what Goffman hascalled second seeings: “[U]nder some cir-cumstances if he and they see each other see-ing each other, they can use this fact as an ex-cuse for an acquaintanceship greeting uponnext seeing. . . . ”40 Unfortunately, this did notgo as easily as Goffman suggests, as dealersopenly yelled “SCAT!”—a term for the policeundercover unit—at me.41 Jump-startingparticipation was clearly the toughest part ofthe research because dealers suspected I wasthe police. Ironically, it was the police whogave me my biggest credibility boost.

Police and Credibility. . . Ferrell notes that “a researcher’s strict

conformity to legal codes can bereconceptualized as less a sign of profes-sional success than a possible portent ofmethodological failure . . .a willingness tobreak the law,” by contrast, “[opens] a vari-ety of methodological possibilities.”42

Hanging with offenders on street corners,driving them around in my car, and visitingtheir homes must have been a curious sight.My appearance is somewhat akin to that of a

Chapter 1 ✦ Researching Crack Dealers 5

college student. Shorts, T-shirts ,crosstrainers, and ball caps with roundedbrims, “just like SCAT wear ‘em” (as one re-spondent put it), make up my typical attire.Further, I am white, clean-cut, and affect amiddle-class appearance, traits the relativelypoor, African American respondents associ-ated with the police. These traits appeared tomake them even more leery that I was SCAT,or that I worked for SCAT in some capacity.

To offenders who hadn’t gotten to knowme well, or to those waiting to pass judg-ment, I was on a deep-cover assignment de-signed to unearth their secrets and put themin jail. To cops on the beat, I was just anothercollege boy driving down to crackville with auser in tow to buy for me. Such relations arecommonplace in the street-level drug sceneand have generalized subcultural currency:users serve as go-betweens and funnel unfa-miliar customers to dealers for a finder’s fee,usually in drugs and without the customer’sconsent, but generally with his or her tacitpermission. When cops see a relativelynicely dressed, clean-shaven white boy driv-ing a late-model car (with out-of-state plates,I might add) and a black street person in thepassenger seat, they lick their chops.

Several police stops of me in a one-monthperiod lent some credibility to this proposi-tion. I had not obtained, as Wright andDecker had, a “prior agreement with the po-lice”43 whereby the police knew what I wasdoing and pledged not to interfere. I chosenot to; the last thing I wanted was to let po-lice know what I was doing. As Polsky ex-plains, “Most of the danger for thefieldworker comes not from the cannibalsand headhunters but from the colonial offi-cials. The criminologist studying uncaughtcriminals in the open finds sooner or laterthat law enforcers try to put him on thespot—because, unless he is a complete fool,he uncovers information that law enforcerswould like to know. . . . ”44 Because my grantwas not a federal one, I could not protect theidentity of my respondents with a certificateof confidentiality (which theoretically barspolice from obtaining data as it pertains toone’s subjects). My work was undercover in asense and eminently discreditable. However,contrary to admonitions by some to avoid

contact with the police while doing researchwith dangerous populations,45 my run-inswith police turned out to be the most essen-tial tool for establishing my credibility.

My first run-in came two weeks aftermaking initial contact with offenders. I wasdriving Luther through a crack-filled neigh-borhood—a neighborhood which also hap-pened to have the highest murder rate in acity which itself had the fourth-highest mur-der rate in the nation.46 We were approach-ing a group of ten mid-teen youths and wereabout to stop when a St. Louis city patrol carpulled behind. Should I stop, as I planned ondoing, and get out and talk with these youths(some of whom Luther marginally knew), orwould that place them in imminent dangerof arrest? Or should I continue on as if noth-ing was really going on, even though I hadbeen driving stop and go, under ten miles anhour, prior to and during the now slow-speedpursuit? I opted for the latter, acceleratingslowly in a vain attempt to reassert a “normalappearance.”47

Sirens went on. I pulled over and reas-sured Luther there was nothing to worryabout since neither of us had contraband (Ihoped). As officers approached, I thoughtabout what to tell them. Should I say I was auniversity professor doing field research oncrack dealers (a part I clearly didn’t look), lie,or say nothing at all? “Whatcha doin’ downhere?” one of the officers snapped. “Exit thevehicle, intertwine your fingers behind yourheads, and kneel with your ankles crossed,”he commanded. The searing June sidewalkwas not conducive to clear thinking, but Irattled something off: “We used to work to-gether at _____. I waited tables, he bussed,and we been friends since. I’m a sociologymajor up at _____ and he said he’d show mearound the neighborhood sometime. Here Iam.” “Yeah right,” the cop snapped againwhile searching for the crack he thought wealready had purchased. Three other policecars arrived, as the cop baited Luther and meas to how we really knew each other, whateach other’s real names were (which neitherof us knew at the time), and what we weredoing here. Dissatisfied with my answers, asergeant took over, lecturing me on the evilsof crack and how it would destroy a life oth-

6 ✦ Introduction to Ethnographic Research . . .

ers in this very neighborhood wished theyhad. I found no fault with the argument, lis-tened attentively, and said nothing. After afinal strip search in the late afternoon sun re-vealed nothing, they said I was lucky, vowedto take me in if I ever showed my face again,and let us go.

On a second occasion, Luther and hishomie Frisco were in my car when we pulledup to a local liquor store. The two becamenervous upon seeing two suits in a “tec” (de-tective) car parked at the phone booth. I toldLuther and Frisco to wait, and I went into thestore. As I exited, the two men approachedand showed their badges. “What you doin’with these guys—do you know ‘em?” “Yes,” Isaid, deciding to tell them who I really wasand what I was doing. “Mind if we searchyour car?” one asked. “No problem,” I re-plied. “Go right ahead.” As one searched mycar (for crack, guns, or whatever else hethought he’d find), his partner cuffed bothLuther and Frisco and ran warrants. As Isoon learned, both detectives knew the twoas repeat violent offenders with long rapsheets. They took Frisco in on an outstand-ing warrant and let Luther go with me. “I re-spect what you’re doing,” the searching offi-cer said as he finished and approached, “butyou don’t know who you’re dealing with.These guys are no good.” I told him thanksand promptly left with Luther, feeling re-morseful about Frisco being taken in onlybecause he was with me.

On a third occasion, I was sitting on mycar making small talk with four or five deal-ers when a patrol car rolled by. The officersinside gave a stern look and told us to break itup. “All right,” I said, not going anywhere.We continued to talk for a few minutes whenthe officers, clearly agitated, rolled by againand demanded in no uncertain terms,“Break it up and we mean now.” I hopped inmy car, drove four or five blocks, made a left,and heard sirens. “Here we go again.” Thistime, I was not nearly as nervous as I hadbeen on the other occasions, ready to dis-pense my professor line, show my consentforms and faculty ID, and see their shockedreaction. “Get out of the car and put yourhands on the trunk,” the driver predictablyordered as I began my explanation. They

searched me anyway, perhaps thinking itwas just another mendacious story, but Ikept conversing in a relaxed, erudite tone.Cops are known to have perceptual short-hands to render quick and accuratetypifications of those with whom they’re in-teracting,48 and I could tell my conversa-tional style was creating a good impression. Itold them that I was doing interviews, that Iwas paying respondents for their time, andthat the research was part of a universitygrant designed to better understand the ev-eryday lives of urban youth. This was, ofcourse, specious. The study’s true purposewas to identify how crack dealers avoid ar-rest, something I dared not admit, for obvi-ous reasons. “You can do what you want,”one of them said, satisfied after a thoroughsearch revealed no contraband, “but if I wereyou, I’d be real careful. You don’t want tomess around with these punks.” His wordsrang all too true several weeks later when Lu-ther pointed the gun at my abdomen.

I did not realize it at the time, but mytreatment by police was absolutely essentialto my research. Police provided the “vitaltest”49 I desperately needed to pass if mystudy were to be successful. The differentialenforcement practices of these police offi-cers (and many others around the coun-try)—in which young, minority males aresingled out as “symbolic assailants” and“suspicious characters” deserving ofattention50—benefitted me immensely. Po-lice detained me because I was with “them.”Driving alone in these same areas at thesame time, though suspicious, would notlikely have attracted nearly as much atten-tion. I was “guilty by association” and “de-serving” of the scrutiny young black males inmany urban locales receive consistently. Formy research, at least, this differential en-forcement was anything but negative.

As Douglas notes, it is often necessary forresearchers to convince offenders they arestudying that the researchers do not repre-sent the authorities.51 Sluka adds that sub-jects “are going to define whose side theythink you are on. They will act towards youon the basis of this definition, regardless ofyour professions.”52 Words may be futile inconvincing offenders who or what one really

Chapter 1 ✦ Researching Crack Dealers 7

is. Ultimately, “actions speak louder thanwords. . . . [T]he researcher will have to dem-onstrate by . . .actions that he is on the side ofthe deviants, or at least, not on the side of theofficials.”53 The police had treated me likejust another user, and had done so with of-fenders present. This treatment provided the“actions” for me, the picture that spoke athousand words.

Offenders’ accounts of my treatmentspread rapidly through the grapevine, solidi-fying my credibility for the remainder of theproject and setting up the snowball samplingprocedure I would use to recruit additionalrespondents. Without the actions of police Imay not have been accepted by offenders asreadily as I was or, perhaps, never acceptedat all. A skillful researcher can use the po-lice—indirectly and without their knowl-edge or, as in my case, without even the re-searcher’s own intent—to demonstrate tooffenders that the researcher is indeed legiti-mate and not an undercover police officer.Often thought to be a critical barrier to entry,the police may be the key to access. Ofcourse, undercover officers themselves canmanipulate this very dynamic to gain credi-bility with those they target—somethingsavvy law enforcement administrators mayexploit by setting up fake arrests in plainview. Such tactics may make a researcher’sidentity even more precarious; in my case,though, this did not occur.

Why police never attempted to confiscatemy notes during these pull-overs I’ll neverknow. Perhaps it was because the notes ap-peared to be chicken scratch and were inde-cipherable by anyone but me. Perhaps it wasbecause my notes didn’t reveal anything thecops did not already know, or at leastthought they knew. Regardless, the law isclearly against ethnographers, who can beheld in contempt and sent to jail for protect-ing sources and withholding information.54

As Carey points out, “There is no privilegedrelationship between the . . .researcher andhis subject similar to that enjoyed by the law-yer and client or psychiatrist and patient.”55

This, of course, says nothing about issues ofguilty knowledge or guilty observation.56

Being aware of dealing operations andwatching transactions take place makes one

an accessory to their commission, a felonywhether one participates or not.Fieldworkers are co-conspirators by defini-tion, no matter their motive or intent. AsPolsky concludes, “If one is effectively tostudy adult criminals in their natural set-tings, he must make the moral decision thatin some ways he will break the law him-self.”57

Researching Active Crack Sellers:In Perspective

By definition, criminological, fieldwork-ers regularly intrude into the lives of individ-uals engaged in felonies—felonies for whichthese individuals can receive hard time. Themore illegal the behavior, the more offendersas research subjects have to lose if found out.Obviously, this makes it tougher—and morerisky—for researchers to gain access.

Street-level crack selling is thus a paradoxof sorts: there is perhaps no other behaviorso openly visible and so negatively sanc-tioned by law as crack selling. It must be thisway for sellers to be available to their cus-tomers. This is particularly true in a declin-ing drug market such as St. Louis58 wheredemand is finite and dwindling, while thenumber of sellers has remained constant orincreased. To compete in such conditions,sellers will often stand out longer and inmore difficult conditions than they previ-ously would, in greater numbers, and ingreater numbers together. Individual sellersalso may rush to customers to steal salesfrom competitors, drawing even more atten-tion. This situation creates ideal conditionsfor police—or researchers—to identify open-air sellers and infiltrate them.

Access notwithstanding, the importanceof a strong indigenous tie to the research set-ting at the beginning of field relations—as away of vouching for the researcher—cannotbe overstated. Access and safe access are twowholly different notions. In my case, this tiewas Luther—or at least so I thought. Moregenerally, it is an indigenous offender or ex-offender turned fieldworker who acts asgatekeeper and protector. Yet, in a twist ofsorts, field research with active offendersoften requires strong ties in order to gener-ate weak ones—that is, to initiate the meth-

8 ✦ Introduction to Ethnographic Research . . .

odological snowball. Micro-structurally andmethodologically, this is unique; multipleweak ties rather than one or two strong onesare thought to be indispensable for social-network creation.59 Indeed, one or twostrong ties may actually cut off an actor froman entire social network.

In field research, developing strong tieswith the wrong person or persons can, at aminimum, bias the sample or, worse, gener-ate no sample at all.60 Researchers may gainentry, but it may be with the wrong person.As my encounter with Luther attests, theoutcome can be far more threatening thanobtaining a biased sample or no sample. Per-haps the larger point here is that, no matterhow strong or safe one’s ties, danger is inher-ent in fieldwork with active offenders. No-where is this more true than amongstreetcorner crack sellers. Although manydangers can be addressed through planningand preparation, more often than not, dan-ger management hinges on a creative pro-cess of “trial and blunder”61 and results froma combination of skill and luck.62 As Slukanotes, “[G]ood luck can sometimes helpovercome a lack of skill, and well-developedskills can go far to help overcome the effectsof bad luck. But sometimes no amount ofskill will save one from a gross portion of badluck.”63 Inevitably, criminological fieldworkis unpredictable and less subject to rationalplanning than we want it to be. How re-searchers handle this problem ultimately is apersonal choice.

Researching active offenders requires oneto balance conflicting agendas. Such agen-das emanate from specific audiences—whether police or criminals—each with theirown biases toward the ethnographic enter-prise. Simply taking sides or currying favorwith one audience over the other is not theissue, though this may be done at somepoint. Research strategies must be weighedcarefully because their consequences are in-evitably dialectical: police can get you “in”with offenders, but offenders can get you “introuble” with police. Personal security is de-pendent on offender acceptance, yet securitycan be compromised by dependency. Policecan be researchers’ last bastion of hopeagainst volatile offenders, but reliance on

authorities may undermine the very purposefor being in the field. Caught among thesecontradictions stands the researcher, a trueone-person “island in the street.”64 In thislonely position, the researcher must decidewhen to shade the truth and when to beforthright, when to offer and when to omit,when to induce and when to lie back. Suchjudgments are subjective and context spe-cific, as any ethnographer will tell you. Theymust be made with the audience in mind,whether that audience is legal or illegal, aca-demic or social. Each choice affects thekinds of data obtained and revealed. Andhow far an ethnographer is willing to go toget such data intertwines with the resultsthat ethnographer hopes ultimately to ob-tain—as my encounter with Luther attests.

Notes1. All names are pseudonyms to protect identi-

ties.

2. Terry Williams, Eloise Dunlap, Bruce D.Johnson, and Ansley Hamid, “PersonalSafety in Dangerous Places,” Journal of Con-temporary Ethonography 21 (1992): 365.

3. Williams et al., “Personal Safety,” 350.

4. Richard A. Berk and Joseph M. Adams, “ Es-tablishing Rapport with Deviant Groups,” So-cial Problems 18 (1970): 110

5. Jeffrey A. Sluka, “Participant Observation inViolent Social Contexts,” Human Organiza-tion 49 (1990): 114.

6. Williams et al., “Personal Safety,” 347.

7. Patrick Biernacki and Dan Waldorf, “Snow-ball Sampling,” Sociological Methods and Re-search 10 (1981): 141–163.

8. See Harold Garfinkel, “Conditions of Suc-cessful Degradation Ceremonies,” AmericanJournal of Sociology 61 (1956): 420–424.

9. Williams et al., “Personal Safety,” 364.

10. Williams et al., “Personal Safety,” 350.

11. John M. Johnson, “Trust and Personal In-volvements in Fieldwork,” in ContemporaryField Research, ed. Robert M. Emerson (Pros-pect Heights, IL: Waveland, 1983), 205.

12. Kurt H. Wolff, “Surrender and CommunityStudy: The Study of Loma,” in Reflections onCommunity Studies, ed. Arthur J. Vidich, Jo-seph Bensman, and Maurice R. Stein (NewYork: Wiley, 1964), 237.

Chapter 1 ✦ Researching Crack Dealers 9

13. Robert H. Lowies, The History of EthnologicalTheory (New York: Farrar and Rinehart,1937), 232.

14. Hortense Powdermaker, Stranger and Friend:The Way of an Anthropologist (New York:Norton, 1966), 19.

15. E. E. Evans-Pritchard, Social Anthropologyand Other Essays (New York: Free Press,1964), 77–79.

16. Berk and Adams, “Establishing Rapport,”103.

17. Berk and Adams, “Establishing Rapport.”18. Rosalie H. Wax, “The Ambiguities of Field-

work,” in Contemporary Field Research, ed.Robert M. Emerson (Prospect Heights, IL:Waveland, 1983), 179.

19. Ned Polsky, Hustlers, Beats, and Others (Chi-cago: Aldine, 1967), 124.

20. Robert M. Emerson, ed., Contemporary FieldResearch (Prospect Heights, IL: Waveland,1983), 179.

21. Ivan Karp and Martha B. Kendall, “Reflexivi-ty in Field Work,” in Explaining Human Be-havior: Consciousness, Human Action, andSocial Structure, ed. Paul F. Secord (BeverlyHills, CA: Sage, 1982), 261.

22. Georg Simmel, “The Stranger,” in GeorgSimmel, ed. Donald Levine (Chicago: Univer-sity of Chicago Press, 1908), 143–149.

23. Emerson, Contemporary, 179.24. Richard T. Wright and Scott H. Decker, Bur-

glars on the Job: Streetlife and ResidentialBreak-ins (Boston: Northeastern UniversityPress, 1994), 26.

25. Berk and Adams, “Establishing Rapport,”107.

26. See Polsky, Hustlers.27. Peter K. Manning, “Observing the Police: De-

viance, Respectables, and the Law,” in Re-search on Deviance, ed. Jack D. Douglas (NewYork: Random House, 1972), 213–268.

28. Annie Oakley, “Interviewing Women: A Con-tradiction in Terms,” in Doing Feminist Re-search, ed. Helen Roberts (London:Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1981), 41.

29. Luther’s stalking came to an end only becausepolice picked him up on two unrelated countsof armed robbery and armed criminal action.He is now serving ten years in a Missouri statepenitentiary. With the help of colleagues, Imoved. My phone number is now unlistedand unpublished, something I recommend toother ethnographers researching active of-fenders.

30. John Irwin, “Participant Observation ofCriminals,” in Research on Deviance, ed. JackD. Douglas (New York: Random House,1972), 117.

31. See Erich Goode, The Marijuana Smokers(New York: Basic, 1970).

32. Sluka, “Participant Observation,“ 115.33. See Patricia Adler, Wheeling and Dealing: An

Enthography of an Upper-Level Drug Delainand Smuggling Community (New York: Co-lumbia University Press, 1985).

34. Diana Scully, Understanding Sexual Violence(Boston: Unwin Inman, 1990).

35. Michael Agar, Ripping and Running: A FormalEthnography of Urban Heroin Addicts (NewYork: Seminar Press, 1973).

36. Wright and Decker, Burglars, 5.37. Edwin Sutherland and Donald Cressey, Crim-

inology, 8th ed. (Philadelphia: Lippincott,1970), 68.

38. Polsky, Hustlers, 123.39. George McCall, Observing the Law (New York:

Free Press, 1978), 27.40. Erving Goffman, Relations in Public: Micro

Studies of the Public Order (New York: BasicBooks, 1971), 323.

41. SCAT is an acronym for “street corner appre-hension team.” This fifteen-man undercoverteam is charged with curbing street-leveldrug sales by apprehending dealers immedi-ately after sales to one of their “buy” officers.Hiding nearby in unmarked cars, personnel“swoop” down on offenders in an attempt tocatch them with marked money just fiventhem by buy officers. This money either hastraceable dye or serial numbers previously re-corded that link dealers to undercover trans-actions. SCAT units were highly feared be-cause they were reportedly merciless in theirarrest procedures (i.e., they conducted stripsearches).

42. Jeff Ferrell and Mark S. Hamm, Ethnographyat the Edge: Crime, Deviance and Field Re-search (Boston: Northeastern UniversityPress, 1998).

43. Wright and Decker, Burglars, 28.44. Polsky, Hustlers, 147.45. See Sluka, “Participant Observation.”46. Federal Bureau of Investigation, Crime in the

United States (Washington, DC: GovernmentPrinting Office, 1995).

47. See Erving Goffman, Stigma: Notes on theManagement of Spoiled Identity, (EnglewoodCliffs, NJ: Prentice-Hall, 1963).

10 ✦ Introduction to Ethnographic Research . . .

48. See John Van Maanen, “The Asshole,” in Po-licing: A View from the Streets, ed. Peter K.Manning and John Van Maanen (SantaMonica: Goodyear, 1978), 221–238.

49. Erving Goffman, Frame Analysis: An Essay onthe Organization of Experience (Cambridge,MA: Harvard University Press, 1974).

50. See Jerome Skolnick, “A Sketch of the Police-man’s ‘Working Personality,’” in Criminal Jus-tice: Law and Politics, ed. George F. Cole(North Scituate, MA: Duxbury Press, 1980).

51. Jack D. Douglas, “Observing Deviance,” in Re-search on Deviance, ed. Jack D. Douglas (NewYork: Random House, 1972), 3–34.

52. Sluka, “Participant Observation,” 123.53. Douglas, “Observing Deviance,” 12.54. Irving Soloway and James Walters, “Workin’

the Corner: The Ethics and Legality of Field-work among Active Heroin Addicts,” in StreetEthnography, ed. Robert S. Weppner (BeverlyHills, CA: Sage, 1977), 175–176.

55. James T. Carey, “Problems of Access and Riskin Observing Drug Scenes,” in Research onDeviance, ed. Jack D. Douglas (New York:Random House, 1972), 77.

56. See Adler, Wheeling, 24.57. Polsky, Hustler, 133–134.58. Andrew Gollub, Farrukh Hakeem, and Bruce

D. Johnson, “Monitoring the Decline in theCrack Epidemic with Data from the Drug UseForecasting Program,” Unpublished manu-script, 1996.

59. Mark Granovetter, “The Strength of WeakTies,” American Journal of Sociology 78(1973): 1360–1380.

60. Douglas’s research on nudist beach goers, forexample, was jeopardized because of hisearly bond with a marginal and generally dis-liked participant (something Douglas did notknow until later)—a participant with whomhe was able to bond precisely because of thatperson’s marginality; see Douglas, “Ob-serving Deviance.”

61. See Karp and Kendall, “Reflexivity.”62. Robert F. Ellen, Ethnographic Research: A

Guide to General Conduct (London: Aca-demic Press, 1984), 97.

63. Sluka, “Participant Observation,” 124.64. Marin Sanchez-Jankowski, Islands in the

Street: Gangs in American Urban Society(Berkeley: University of California Press,1991).

Bruce A. Jacobs, “Researching CrackDealers: Dilemmas and Contradictions,” inJeff Ferrell and Mark S. Hamm (Editors)Ethnography at the Edge: Crime, Devianceand Field Research (Boston, NorthearternUniversity Press, 1998). Used with permis-sion.

From Ethnography at the Edge: Crime, Deviance, and FieldResearch, editied by Jeff Farrell and Mark S. Hamm. Re-printed with the permission of Northeastern Univer-sity Press. ✦

Chapter 1 ✦ Researching Crack Dealers 11

2A Snowball’sChance in HellDoing Fieldwork With ActiveResidential Burglars

Richard T. WrightScott H. DeckerAllison K. RedfernDietrich L. Smith

Criminologists long have recognized theimportance of field studies of active offend-ers. More than 2 decades ago, for example,Polsky (1969, 116) observed that “we can nolonger afford the convenient fiction that instudying criminals in their natural habitat,we would discover nothing really importantthat could not be discovered from criminalsbehind bars.” Similarly, Sutherland andCressey (1970) noted that:

Those who have had intimate contactswith criminals “in the open” know thatcriminals are not “natural” in police sta-tions, courts, and prisons, and that theymust be studied in their everyday life out-side of institutions if they are to be under-stood. By this is meant that the investiga-tor must associate with them as one ofthem, seeing their lives and conditions asthe criminals themselves see them. Inthis way, he can make observations whichcan hardly be made in any other way.Also, his observations are of unappre-hended criminals, not the criminals se-lected by the processes of arrest and im-prisonment. (68)

And McCall (1978, 27) also cautioned thatstudies of incarcerated offenders are vulner-able to the charge that they are based on “un-successful criminals, on the supposition thatsuccessful criminals are not apprehended or

at least are able to avoid incarceration.” Thischarge, he asserts, is “the most central bo-geyman in the criminologist’s demonology”(also see Cromwell, Olson, and Avary 1991;Hagedorn 1990; Watters and Biernacki1989).

Although generally granting the validityof such critiques, most criminologists haveshied away from studying criminals, so tospeak, in the wild. Although their reluctanceto do so undoubtedly is attributable to a vari-ety of factors (e.g., Wright and Bennett1990), probably the most important of theseis a belief that this type of research is imprac-tical. In particular, how is one to locate activecriminals and obtain their cooperation?

The entrenched notion that field-basedstudies of active offenders are unworkablehas been challenged by Chambliss (1975)who asserts that:

The data on organized crime and profes-sional theft as well as other presumablydifficult-to-study events are much moreavailable than we usually think. All we re-ally have to do is to get out of our officesand onto the street. The data are there;the problem is that too often [research-ers] are not. (39)

Those who have carried out field researchwith active criminals would no doubt regardthis assertion as overly simplistic, but theyprobably would concur with Chambliss thatit is easier to find and gain the confidence ofsuch offenders than commonly is imagined.As Hagedorn (1990, 251) has stated: “Anygood field researcher . . .willing to spend thelong hours necessary to develop good infor-mants can solve the problem of access.”

We recently completed the fieldwork for astudy of residential burglars, exploring, spe-cifically, the factors they take into accountwhen contemplating the commission of anoffense. The study is being done on thestreets of St. Louis, Missouri, a declining“rust belt” city. As part of this study, we lo-cated and interviewed 105 active offenders.We also took 70 of these offenders to the siteof a recent burglary and asked them to re-construct the crime in considerable detail. Inthe following pages, we will discuss how wefound these offenders and obtained their co-operation. Further, we will consider the diffi-

12

culties involved in maintaining an on-goingfield relationship with these offenders, manyof whom lead chaotic lives. Lastly, we willoutline the characteristics of our sample,suggesting ways in which it differs from onecollected through criminal justice channels.

Locating the SubjectsIn order to locate the active offenders for

our study, we employed a “snowball” or“chain referral” sampling strategy. As de-scribed in the literature (e.g., Sudman 1976;Watters and Biernacki 1989), such a strategybegins with the recruitment of an initial sub-ject who then is asked to recommend furtherparticipants. This process continues until asuitable sample has been “built.”

The most difficult aspect of using a snow-ball sampling technique is locating an initialcontact or two. Various ways of doing sohave been suggested. McCall (1978), for in-stance, recommends using a “chain of refer-rals”:

If a researcher wants to make contactwith, say, a bootlegger, he thinks of theperson he knows who is closest in the so-cial structure to bootlegging. Perhapsthis person will be a police officer, ajudge, a liquor store owner, a crime re-porter, or a recently arrived Southern mi-grant. If he doesn’t personally know ajudge or a crime reporter, he surelyknows someone (his own lawyer or a cir-culation clerk) who does and who wouldbe willing to introduce him. By means ofa very short chain of such referrals, theresearcher can obtain an introduction tovirtually any type of criminal. (31)

This strategy can be effective and effi-cient, but can also have pitfalls. In attempt-ing to find active offenders for our study, weavoided seeking referrals from criminal jus-tice officials for both practical and method-ological reasons. From a practical stand-point, we elected not to use contactsprovided by police or probation officers,fearing that this would arouse the suspicionsof offenders that the research was the coverfor a “sting” operation. One of the offenderswe interviewed, for example, explained thathe had not agreed to participate earlier be-

cause he was worried about being set up foran arrest: “I thought about it at first becauseI’ve seen on T.V. telling how [the police] havesent letters out to people telling ‘em they’vewon new sneakers and then arrested ‘em.”We also did not use referrals from law en-forcement or corrections personnel to locateour subjects owing to a methodological con-cern that a sample obtained in this way maybe highly unrepresentative of the total popu-lation of active offenders. It is likely, for in-stance, that such a sample would include adisproportionate number of unsuccessfulcriminals, that is, those who have beencaught in the past (e.g., Hagedorn 1990).Further, this sample might exclude a numberof successful offenders who avoid associat-ing with colleagues known to the police.Rengert and Wasilchick (1989, 6) used a pro-bationer to contact active burglars, observ-ing that the offenders so located “were oftenvery much like the individual who led us tothem.”

A commonly suggested means of makinginitial contact with active offenders otherthan through criminal justice sources in-volves frequenting locales favored by crimi-nals (see Chambliss 1975; Polsky 1969; West1980). This strategy, however, requires an ex-traordinary investment of time as the re-searcher establishes a street reputation as an“all right square” (Irwin 1972, 123) who canbe trusted. Fortunately, we were able toshort-cut that process by hiring an ex-of-fender (who, despite committing hundredsof serious crimes, had few arrests and no fel-ony convictions) with high status amongseveral groups of black street criminals in St.Louis. This person retired from crime afterbeing shot and paralyzed in a gangland-styleexecution attempt. He then attended a uni-versity and earned a bachelor’s degree, butcontinued to live in his old neighborhood, re-maining friendly, albeit superficially, withlocal criminals. We initially met him whenhe attended a colloquium in our departmentand disputed the speaker’s characterizationof street criminals.

Working through an ex-offender with con-tinuing ties to the underworld as a means oflocating active criminals has been used suc-cessfully by other criminologists (see e.g.,

Chapter 2 ✦ A Snowball’s Chance in Hell 13

Taylor 1985). This approach offers the ad-vantage that such a person already has con-tacts and trust in the criminal subcultureand can vouch for the legitimacy of the re-search. In order to exploit this advantagefully, however, the ex-offender selected mustbe someone with a solid street reputation forintegrity and must have a strong commit-ment to accomplishing the goals of the study.

The ex-offender hired to locate subjectsfor our project began by approaching formercriminal associates. Some of these contactswere still “hustling,” that is, actively involvedin various types of crimes, whereas others ei-ther had retired or remained involved onlyperipherally through, for example, occa-sional buying and selling of stolen goods.Shortly thereafter, the ex-offender contactedseveral street-wise law-abiding friends, in-cluding a youth worker. He explained the re-search to the contacts, stressing that it wasconfidential and that the police were not in-volved. He also informed them that thosewho took part would be paid a small sum(typically $25.00). He then asked the con-tacts to put him in touch with active residen-tial burglars.

Figure 1 outlines the chain of referralsthrough which the offenders were located.Perhaps the best way to clarify this processinvolves selecting a subject, say 064, andidentifying the referrals that led us to thisperson. In this case, the ex-offender workingon our project contacted a street-wise, non-criminal acquaintance who put him in touchwith the first active burglar in the chain, of-fender 015. Offender 015 referred 7 col-leagues, one of whom—033—put us in touchwith 3 more subjects, including 035, who inturn introduced us to 038, who referred 8more participants. Among these partici-pants was offender 043, a well-connectedburglar who provided 12 further contacts, 2of whom—060 and 061—convinced 064 toparticipate in the research. This procedure issimilar to that described by Watters andBiernacki (1989, 426) in that “the majority ofrespondents were not referred directly by re-search staff.” As a consequence, our samplewas strengthened considerably. After all, wealmost certainly would not have been able tofind many of these individuals on our own,let alone convince them to cooperate.

14 ✦ Introduction to Ethnographic Research . . .

Figure 1“Snowball” Referral Chart

Throughout the process of locating sub-jects, we encountered numerous difficultiesand challenges. Contacts that initially ap-peared to be promising, for example, some-times proved to be unproductive and had tobe dropped. And, of course, even productivecontact chains had a tendency to “dry up”eventually. One of the most challenging taskswe confronted involved what Biernacki andWaldorf (1981, 150) have termed the “verifi-cation of eligibility,” that is, determiningwhether potential subjects actually met thecriteria for inclusion in our research. Inorder to take part, offenders had to be both“residential burglars” and “currently active.”In practice, this meant that they had to havecommitted a residential burglary within thepast 2 weeks. This seems straightforward,but it often was difficult to apply the criteriain the field because offenders were evasiveabout their activities. In such cases, we fre-quently had to rely on other members of thesample to verify the eligibility of potentialsubjects.

We did not pay the contacts for helping usto find subjects and, initially, motivatingthem to do so proved difficult. Small favors,things like giving them a ride or buying thema pack of cigarettes, produced some cooper-ation, but yielded only a few introductions.Moreover, the active burglars that we didmanage to find often were lackadaisicalabout referring associates because no finan-cial incentive was offered. Eventually, one ofthe informants hit on the idea of “pimping”colleagues, that is, arranging an introduc-tion on their behalf in exchange for a cut ofthe participation fee (also see Cromwell et al.1991). This idea was adopted rapidly byother informants and the number of refer-rals rose accordingly. In effect, these infor-mants became “locators” (Biernacki andWaldorf 1981), helping us to expand referralchains as well as vouching for the legitimacyof the research, and validating potential par-ticipants as active residential burglars.

The practice of pimping is consistent withthe low level, underworld economy of streetculture, where people are always looking fora way to get in on someone else’s deal. One ofour contacts put it this way: “If there’s moneyto make out of something, I gotta figure out a

way to get me some of it.” Over the course ofthe research, numerous disputes arose be-tween offenders and informants over thepayment of referral fees. We resisted becom-ing involved in these disputes, reckoningthat such involvement could only result inthe alienation of one or both parties (e.g.,Miller 1952). Instead, we made it clear thatour funds were intended as interview pay-ments and thus would be given only to inter-viewees.

Field RelationsThe success of our research, of course,

hinged on an ability to convince potentialsubjects to participate. Given that many ofthe active burglars, especially those locatedearly in the project, were deeply suspiciousof our motives, it is reasonable to ask whythe offenders were willing to take part in theresearch. Certainly the fact that we paidthem a small sum for their time was an en-ticement for many, but this is not an ade-quate explanation. After all, criminal oppor-tunities abound and even the inept “nickeland dime” offenders in the sample couldhave earned more had they spent the timeengaged in illegal activity. Moreover, some ofthe subjects clearly were not short of cashwhen they agreed to participate; at the closeof one interview, an offender pulled out hiswallet to show us that it was stuffed withthousand dollar bills, saying:

I just wanted to prove that I didn’t do thisfor the money. I don’t need the money. Idid it to help out [the ex-offender em-ployed on our project]. We know some ofthe same people and he said you werecool.

Without doubt, many in our sampleagreed to participate only because the ex-of-fender assured them that we were trustwor-thy. But other factors were at work as well.Letkemann (1973, 44), among others, hasobserved that the secrecy inherent in crimi-nal work means that offenders have few op-portunities to discuss their activities withanyone besides associates which many ofthem find frustrating. As one of his infor-mants put it: “What’s the point of scoring ifnobody knows about it?” Under the right

Chapter 2 ✦ A Snowball’s Chance in Hell 15

conditions, therefore, some offenders mayenjoy talking about their work with re-searchers.

We adopted several additional strategiesto maximize the cooperation of the offend-ers. First, following the recommendations ofexperienced field researchers (e.g., Irwin1972; McCall 1978; Walker and Lidz 1977;Wright and Bennett 1990), we made an effortto “fit in” by learning the distinctive termi-nology and phrasing used by the offenders.Here again, the assistance of the ex-offenderproved invaluable. Prior to entering thefield, he suggested ways in which questionsmight be asked so that the subjects wouldbetter understand them, and provided uswith a working knowledge of popular streetterms (e.g, “boy” for heroin, “girl” for co-caine) and pronunciations (e.g., “hair ron”for heroin). What is more, he sat in on theearly interviews and critiqued them after-wards, noting areas of difficulty or conten-tion and offering possible solutions.

A second strategy to gain the cooperationof the offenders required us to give as well astake. We expected the subjects to answer ourquestions frankly and, therefore, often hadto reciprocate. Almost all of them had ques-tions about how the information would beused, who would have access to it, and so on.We answered these questions honestly, lestthe offenders conclude that we were beingevasive. Further, we honored requests from anumber of subjects for various forms of as-sistance. Provided that the help requestedwas legal and fell within the general set “ofnorms governing the exchange of money andother kinds of favors” (Berk and Adams1970, 112) on the street, we offered it. For ex-ample, we took subjects to job interviews orwork, helped some to enroll in school, andgave others advice on legal matters. We evenassisted a juvenile offender who was injuredwhile running away from the police, to ar-range for emergency surgery when his par-ents, fearing that they would be charged forthe operation, refused to give their consent.

One other way we sought to obtain andkeep the offenders’ confidence involveddemonstrating our trustworthiness by “re-maining close-mouthed in regard to poten-tially harmful information” (Irwin 1972,125). A number of the offenders tested us by

asking what a criminal associate said abouta particular matter. We declined to discusssuch issues, explaining that the promise ofconfidentiality extended to all those partici-pating in our research.

Much has been written about the neces-sity for researchers to be able to withstandofficial coercion (see Irwin 1972; McCall1978; Polsky 1969) and we recognized fromthe start the threat that intrusions fromcriminal justice officials could pose to ourresearch. The threat of being confronted bypolice patrols seemed especially great giventhat we planned to visit the sites of recentsuccessful burglaries with offenders. There-fore, prior to beginning our fieldwork, wenegotiated an agreement with police author-ities not to interfere in the conduct of the re-search, and we were not subjected to officialcoercion.

Although the strategies described abovehelped to mitigate the dangers inherent inworking with active criminals (see e.g.,Dunlap et al. 1990), we encountered many po-tentially dangerous situations over the courseof the research. For example, offendersturned up for interviews carrying firearms in-cluding, on one occasion, a machine gun; wewere challenged on the street by subjects whofeared that they were being set up for arrest;we were caught in the middle of a fight overthe payment of a $1 debt. Probably the mostdangerous situation, however, arose whiledriving with an offender to the site of his mostrecent burglary. As we passed a pedestrian,the offender became agitated and demandedthat we stop the car: “You want to see me killsomeone? Stop the car! I’m gonna kill thatmotherfucker. Stop the fuckin’ car!” We re-fused to stop and actually sped up to preventhim jumping out of the vehicle; this clearlydispleased him, although he eventuallycalmed down. The development of such situ-ations was largely unpredictable and thusavoiding them was difficult. Often we de-ferred to the ex-offender’s judgment about thesafety of a given set of circumstances. Themost notable precaution that we took in-volved money; we made sure that the offend-ers knew that we carried little more than wasnecessary to pay them.

16 ✦ Introduction to Ethnographic Research . . .

Characteristics of the Sample

Unless a sample of active offenders differssignificantly from one obtained throughcriminal justice channels, the difficultiesand risks associated with the street-based re-cruitment of research subjects could not eas-ily be justified. Accordingly, it seems impor-tant that we establish whether such adifference exists. In doing so, we will beginby outlining the demographic characteris-tics of our sample. In terms of race, it nearlyparallels the distribution of burglary arrestsfor the City of St. Louis in 1988, the most re-cent year for which data [were] available.The St. Louis Metropolitan Police Depart-ment’s Annual Report (1989) reveals that 64percent of burglary arrestees in that yearwere Black, and 36 percent were White. Oursample was 69 percent Black and 31 percentWhite. There is divergence for the gendervariable, however; only 7 percent of allarrestees in the city were female, while 17percent of our sample fell into this category.This is not surprising. The characteristics ofa sample of active criminals, after all, wouldnot be expected to mirror those of one ob-tained in a criminal justice setting.

Given that our research involved only cur-rently active offenders, it is interesting tonote that 21 of the subjects were on proba-tion, parole, or serving a suspended sen-tence, and that a substantial number of juve-niles—27 or 26 percent of the total—werelocated for the study. The inclusion of suchoffenders strengthens the research consider-ably because approximately one third of ar-rested burglars are under 18 years of age(Sessions 1989). Juveniles, therefore, needto be taken into account in any comprehen-sive study of burglars. These offenders, how-ever, seldom are included in studies of bur-glars located through criminal justicechannels because access to them is legally re-stricted and they often are processed differ-ently than adult criminals and detained inseparate facilities.

Prior contact with the criminal justicesystem is a crucial variable for this re-search. . . . Of primary interest . . .is the ex-tent to which our snowball sampling tech-nique uncovered a sample of residential

burglars unlikely to be encountered in acriminal justice setting, the site of most re-search on offenders.

More than one-quarter of the offenders(28 percent) claimed never to have been ar-rested. (We excluded arrests for traffic of-fenses, “failure to appear” and similar minortransgressions, because such offenses do notadequately distinguish serious criminalsfrom others.) Obviously, these offenderswould have been excluded had we based ourstudy on a jail or prison population. Perhapsa more relevant measure in the context ofour study, however, is the experience of theoffenders with the criminal justice systemfor the offense of burglary, because most pre-vious studies of burglars not only have beenbased on incarcerated offenders, but alsohave used the charge of burglary as a screento select subjects (e.g., Bennett and Wright1984; Rengert and Wasilchick 1985). Of the105 individuals in our sample, 44 (42 per-cent) had no arrests for burglary, and an-other 35 (33 percent) had one or more ar-rests, but no convictions for the offense.Thus 75 percent of our sample would not beincluded in a study of incarcerated bur-glars. . . .

ConclusionBy its nature, research involving active

criminals is always demanding, often diffi-cult, and occasionally dangerous. However,it is possible and, as the quantitative infor-mation reported above suggests, some of theoffenders included in such research may dif-fer substantially from those found throughcriminal justice channels. It is interesting,for example, that those in our sample whohad never been arrested for anything, on av-erage, offended more frequently and hadcommitted more lifetime burglaries thantheir arrested counterparts. These “success-ful” offenders, obviously, would not haveshown up in a study of arrestees, prisoners,or probationers—a fact that calls into ques-tion the extent to which a sample obtainedthrough official sources is representative ofthe total population of criminals.

Beyond this, researching active offendersis important because it provides an opportu-

Chapter 2 ✦ A Snowball’s Chance in Hell 17

nity to observe and talk with them outsidethe institutional context. As Cromwell et al.(1991) have noted, it is difficult to assess thevalidity of accounts offered by institutional-ized criminals. Simply put, a full under-standing of criminal behavior requires thatcriminologists incorporate field studies ofactive offenders into their research agendas.Without such studies, both the representa-tiveness and the validity of research based onoffenders located through criminal justicechannels will remain problematic.

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18 ✦ Introduction to Ethnographic Research . . .