Doctoral Dissertation Research: Crackdowns and Innovative Adaptations in the Digital Age of Drug Trade

该项目探讨了数字时代的毒品交易是如何组织的，以及该组织如何受到执法打击的影响。这项研究将解决社会学研究中关于信息技术如何改变社会的一个核心悖论：虽然互联网是一种解放力量，例如，因为它帮助人们以低成本组织跨时间和距离的社会活动，但同样的通信技术扩展了现有的权力结构，例如，通过大规模监视持不同意见的公民。通过研究这两种力量之间的冲突——在这个案例中，一方面是互联网介导的犯罪，另一方面是执法行动——该项目探讨了数字时代社会控制工作的意外后果，因为目标群体难以克服阻止它们的努力。调查数字市场中长期存在的刑事司法方法对违禁商品和服务的影响，将为正在进行的关于毒品政策改革的辩论提供信息，并从更广泛的角度扩大对社会行为监管的认识。拟议的项目将促进对非法市场的研究。直接通过所进行的研究，间接通过向其他研究人员公开提供有关贸易模式的所有数量数据。2014年，联合调查团采访了一名英国男子，他在“相当多年”的时间里一直从事“大规模”毒品交易，专门从事鸦片和大麻交易。最近向电子商务的转变改变了他的业务。“（现在）我们的目标不同了。”在数字市场，“你可以制定结构化的计划，实现可实现的目标，你可以以可控的方式扩张。”另一名受访者表示，在他开始网上贩卖机之前，他没有毒品交易的经验。他当时解释说，他与客户或供应商没有面对面的互动——他在家里的厨房里生产化学药物，通过互联网处理所有订单，并通过传统邮政服务寄送精心包装的产品。他说，他的计划是严格保持数字化。“除了互联网，我与任何可以销售产品的环境都没有联系。我可不想冒险暴露在警察可能知道的环境里。”这两家供应商在一个已被执法部门关闭的市场上很活跃，但他们都继续在其他市场做生意。该项目提出的问题是，非法商品和服务的数字贸易是如何组织起来的，市场参与者是如何适应执法的？美国努力阻止他们？根据从被禁商品和服务的数字市场收集的定量数据，该研究详细介绍了这些市场如何成功地组织起规模贸易，这种规模直到最近还只有拥有军事、政治和经济资本的犯罪集团才有可能实现，以及在几次执法打击之后，这种贸易是如何继续进行的。为了解释供应商和顾客为何以及如何面对执法部门继续进行被禁止的活动，我们将与客户和供应商进行面谈。

The project explores how drug trade in the digital age is organized, and how that organization is affected by law enforcement crackdowns. The research will address a central paradox in sociological research about how information technology is changing society: while the internet is a force of liberation, e.g. because it helps people organize social activities across time and distance at low cost, the same communication technology extends existing power structures, e.g. through large-scale surveillance of dissenting citizens. By studying clashes between these two forces--in this case represented by internet-mediated crime on the one hand and law enforcement operations on the other--the project explores the unintended consequences of social control work in the digital age, as targeted groups struggle to overcome the efforts to halt them. Investigating the consequences of long-standing criminal justice methods in digital markets for banned goods and services will inform the ongoing debate on drug policy reform, and more broadly, expand the knowledge of the policing of social behavior. The proposed project will advance research on illegal markets ? directly through the undertaken research, and indirectly by making all quantitative data on trade patterns publicly available for other researchers. In 2014, the Co-PI interviewed a British man who had been running a "largeish" drug dealing operation for "quite a few years", specializing in opium and cannabis. A recent shift to e-commerce had transformed his business. "Our goals are different [now]." In digital markets, "you can make structured plans, attainable goals, you can expand in a controlled manner." Another interviewee said he had no prior experience with drug trade before he started vending online. He explained at the time that he has no face-to-face interaction with customers or suppliers--he produces his chemical drugs in his home kitchen, processes all orders through the internet, and sends his meticulously packed products by conventional postal services. His plan is to remain strictly digital, he said. "I have no contact with any milieu where I can sell my products, outside of the internet. I have no desire to risk exposure in milieus the police might know of." The two vendors were active in a market that has since been shut down by law enforcement, but both continued to do business in other markets. This project asks, how is digital trade of illegal goods and services organized, and how are market actors adapting to law enforcement?s efforts to stop them? Drawing on quantitative data collected from digital markets for banned goods and services, the research details how the markets successfully organize trade on a scale that was, until recently, only possible for criminal syndicates with access to military, political and economic capital, and how the trade continued after several law enforcement crackdowns. To explain why and how vendors and customers continued their banned activities in the face of law enforcement, interviews with customers and vendors will be conducted.