By Eirik Jerven Berger 

Recent research on privileged drug offenders argues that they are at an advantage compared to marginalized people dealing drugs. The main question asked in this article is whether this is also the case in a more egalitarian country like Norway, and if it influences dealers’ decision-making. Findings reveal that privileged drug dealers believed they were at an advantage when it came to police and customers compared to people with an ethnic minority background or people dealing in open drug markets, but at a disadvantage in relation to violence and robberies. With regards to decision-making, believing they had advantages in encounters with the police informed their decision to be cooperative expecting fair treatment. Believing they were at an advantage with affluent customers in wealthy communities, and at a disadvantage with more street-oriented drug dealers, restricted privileged drug dealers' dealing to affluent low-risk contexts. The advantages and disadvantages privileged drug dealers talk about in interviews arguably reflect real-life drug market inequalities but are also a mechanism shaping decision-making that may reproduce drug market inequality. The study adds knowledge to the nascent literature on affluent drug dealers by introducing a novel case.

 European Journal of Criminology 2025, Vol. 22(1) 127–146

RAND CORP.

Facilitator, law law enforcement, and and community organizers introduce themselves and and summarize overall aim of the dialogue. For example, “Now we’d like to tell you why of the example, "Now we'd like to tell we we are are engaged in in this this work. In In recent years, we've seen many examples of tension of between police and the communities they serve. Importantly, events that happen and the that elsewhere can also affect and inform local community-police relations. We're doing also affect and inform this this exercise to help community members and police better communicate their to and police expectations." expectations.” It It also helps participants participants to to think about " “what what if if something happened here that is similar to what we’re seeing nationally?” “Would we be prepared?” here “Would that we is know similar how to what to respond? we're ” seeing “How nationally? should we " " respond? Would we ” be p

Santa Monica. CA. RAND CORP. 2023. 28p.

Rand Corp.

In recent years, a number of serious conflicts between police officers and members of the communities they serve have raised the importance of effective community-police relations in the United States. Building on its policing and community-based participatory research portfolio, RAND designed a community-based dialogue to address this problem. The dialogue is designed to start a conversation about these issues among community stakeholders, including police, government agencies, social service providers, resident representatives, and other concerned organizations. RAND has also designed a youth-focused dialogue to address specific scenarios most relevant to youth-police interactions.