Dorm Room Dealing Summary

The Book Dorm Room Dealings delivers a unique perspective into the world of college drug dealing. Their research consists of extensive fieldwork and analysis within the thriving Southern California drug-distribution network. The book highlights the advantages of being an affluent dealer, and details how the criminal justice system disproportionately affects the accused who are colored and those who come from lower socioeconomic backgrounds.
Mohamed and Fritsvold go directly to the source of drug trafficking by developing a “peripheral membership” with the college drug dealers. These dealers sell a drugs ranging from recreational drugs such as Marijuana, to intense drugs such as Cocaine. The book challenges the dominant narrative that drug trafficking is conducted within only lower income neighborhoods. Rather, the book reveals that these dealings are conducted by predominantly white, wealthy college students who face minimal consequences in their criminal acts. Dorm dealers do not face the same severity of punishment their streets counterparts experience.
The book flies in the face of conventional beliefs of how criminals are perceived. It is widely accepted that dealing …show more content…
However, the book only covers a specific portion of drug dealing, as the fieldwork was only conducted in California at private universities. This limited research does not reflect what college dealing looks like in other regions of the country, nor does it represent dealing in universities of different sizes or religious affiliations. Although the book states that the college dealers face significantly less consequences with their dealing, we do not know what percentage college dealers make up the whole drug dealing community. A potential avenue to explore would be researching if the incarceration rates of rich whites and poor whites were comparable, or if their punishments are