As the use of crack spread, crime followed closely behind. According to statistics compiled by large metropolitan police departments, the sale and use of crack spawns far more crime than the sale and use of most other drugs. Statistics also indicate that crack is responsible for an increase in the violence of crimes committed. The U.S. Sentencing Commission held a hearing on cocaine and crack in which criminologist Dr. Steven Belenko addressed the commission as an expert witness. According to the commission’s published report, “Dr. Steven Belenko stated that he had analyzed arrest data for crack cocaine sellers and determined that, relative to powder cocaine sellers, crack cocaine sellers had higher arrest rates for both nondrug and violent crimes.”

Crime associated with America’s underground crack industry is a large, violent, and complex problem. In addition to possession and sale of crack, which are violations of the law, crack dealers and users perpetrate many other crimes as well. Not only do innocent people become victims, people within the crack culture are themselves victimized.

Because they need many doses of the drug to feed their habit, addicts can easily spend over $100 a day to satisfy their craving for crack. Handicapped by the effects of the drug, most addicts are incapable of maintaining full-time legitimate jobs to earn this much money, much less pay for their other daily needs. For many of these people, the only option is to turn to crime: selling crack themselves, armed robbery, mugging, shoplifting, auto theft, and prostitution. Ironically, although hundreds of millions of dollars’ worth of goods are stolen each year to support crack habits, more often than not, dealers and users victimize each other.

Within the complex network of drug distribution, dealers and users commit many crimes against each other. Traffickers fight over control of sales in particular neighborhoods, dealers rob rival dealers of drugs and money, and dealers sell diluted crack to their customers. From time to time, gang members who have become police informants are exposed; they are often killed in retaliation. Hierarchies within drug gangs are established and maintained with force, and dozens of minor rules within the crack “community” are violently enforced. Controlling street dealers, for example, is generally done through physical threats. Belenko states that the need to maintain control over street dealers creates an atmosphere where everyone is likely to “use … violence to maintain discipline, resolve disputes, and enforce control.” These types of crime are a part of the crack business and, because that business is illegal, most victims are unwilling to turn to the police and cannot ask courts to redress their grievances. As one expert notes, “In an underground economy, you can’t sue. So you use violence to enforce your breaches of contract or perceived breaches of contract.”

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