Hostname: page-component-745bb68f8f-g4j75 Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2025-01-11T08:46:33.604Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Caught in the Con-Game: The Young, White Drug User's Contact with the Legal System

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 January 1975

Clinton R. Sanders
Clinton R. Sanders*
Affiliation:
Department of Sociology, Temple University
Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Extract

Core share and HTML view are not available for this content. However, as you have access to this content, a full PDF is available via the ‘Save PDF’ action button.

This paper examines a controversial area of legal activity—the enforcement of drug laws. It focuses on the experiences of the young, white drug user for whom arrest and processing for drug law violations commonly represent the first serious involvement with the legal system.

It is within the interactions and institutional experience of legal processing that the young drug user alters, reconstructs or solidifies a meaning structure which defines and justifies his behavior (Blumer, 1969). This shaping of definitions and perceptions takes place primarily within a particular institutional setting—narcotics court. The purpose of the court (as it is perceived by the regular actors within the court setting) is to publicly identify the "deviant" thereby setting an example for potential or undetected lawbreakers and to punish the perpetrators of deviance in order to deter them from engaging in further deviant activity (cf., Schwartz and Skolnick, 1962:133).

Type
Research Article
Information
Law & Society Review , Volume 9 , Issue 2: Litigation and Dispute Processing: Part II , Winter 1975 , pp. 197 - 217
Copyright
Copyright © 1975 The Law and Society Association

References

BECKER, Howard S. and Blanche, GEER (1957) “Participant Observation and Interviewing: A Comparison,” 16 Human Organization, 3 (Fall), 28.Google Scholar
BECKER, Howard S. and Blanche, GEER (1963) Outsiders: Studies in the Sociology of Deviance. New York: Free Press.Google Scholar
BLUMBERG, Abraham S. (1967a) “The Practice of Law as a Confidence Game: Organizational Cooptation of a Profession,” 1 Law and Society Review 15.Google Scholar
BLUMBERG, Abraham S. (1967b) Criminal Justice. Chicago: Quadrangle.Google Scholar
BLUMER, Herbert (1969) Symbolic Interactionism. Englewood Cliffs, New Jersey: Prentice Hall.Google Scholar
CAREY, James T. (1968) The College Drug Scene. Englewood Cliffs, New Jersey: Prentice Hall.Google Scholar
DOMINICK, John (1970) The Drug Bust. New York: Light.Google Scholar
GOFFMAN, Erving (1961) Asylums. New York: Doubleday and Co.Google Scholar
GOFFMAN, Erving (1959) The Presentation of Self in Everyday Life. New York: Anchor.Google Scholar
HARNEY, Malachi and John C., CROSS (1960) The Informer in Law Enforcement. Springfield, Illinois: Thomas.Google Scholar
HOWARD, John Robert (1969) “The Flowering of the Hippie Movement,” 382 The Annals 43.Google Scholar
KAPLAN, John (1970) Marihuana—The New Prohibition. New York: World.Google Scholar
LINDESMITH, Alfred (1967) The Addict and the Law. New York: Vintage.Google Scholar
McINTYRE, Donald M. (1968) “Judicial Dominance of the Charging Process,” 59 Journal of Criminal Law, Criminology and Police Science 463.Google Scholar
McKITRICK, Eric L. (1957) “The Study of Corruption,” 72 Political Science Quarterly 502.Google Scholar
MARGOLIS, Jack and Richard, CLORFENE (1969) A Child's Garden of Grass. New York: Simon and Schuster.Google Scholar
MATZA, David (1969) Becoming Deviant. Englewood Cliffs, New Jersey: Prentice-Hall.Google Scholar
MATZA, David (1964) Delinquency and Drift. New York: John Wiley.Google Scholar
OLIVER, John W. (1969) “Assessment of Current Legal Practices From the Viewpoint of the Courts,” in Wittenborn, H.R. et al. (eds.) Drugs and Youth. Springfield, Illinois: Charles C. Thomas.Google Scholar
PILEGGI, Nicholas (1971) “From D. A. to Dope Lawyer,” New York Times Magazine, May 16: 34.Google Scholar
ROSENTHAL, Michael P. (1969) “Marihuana: Some Alternatives,” in Wittenborn, J.R. et al. (eds.) Drugs and Youth. Springfield, Illinois. Charles C. Thomas, 260.Google Scholar
SANDERS, Clinton R. (1972) “The High and the Mighty: The Middle-Class Drug User and the Legal System,” Ph.D. Dissertation, Department of Sociology, Northwestern University.Google Scholar
SCHAPS, Eric and Clinton R., SANDERS (1970) “Purposes, Patterns, and Protection in a Campus Drug Using Community,” 11 Journal of Health and Social Behavior 135.Google Scholar
SIMMONS, J.L. (1964) “On Maintaining Deviant Belief Systems: A Case Study,” 11 Social Problems 250.Google Scholar
SUTHERLAND, Edwin H. (1937) The Professional Thief. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.Google Scholar
SCHWARTZ, Richard D. and Jerome H., SKOLNICK (1962) “Two Studies of Legal Stigma,” 10 Social Problems 133.Google Scholar