Race and Rationality: A Theoretical Examination of Differential Travel Patterns to Acquire Drugs

ABSTRACT

Although scholarship challenges the idea that individuals are completely rational, rationality remains a driving explanation of offender decision-making. For example, the journey to crime literature relies on offender rationale to explain where individuals purchase illicit drugs. However, the assumption that individual rationality is homogenous does not explain aggregate disparities that exist between Black and white offenders purchasing illegal drugs. This paper addresses that void by reviewing relevant theoretical literature. We argue that drug purchase location decision-making is influenced by local structural conditions, the policing of racial barriers and one’s own cognitive imagination. In doing so, we contend that individuals are rational actors whose decisions are shaped by information that is (1) limited/bounded and (2) filtered through a racialized society and experiences tied to racial/ethnic identity.

Notes

¹ We capitalize the “b” in Blacks and not the “w” in whites to acknowledge the racial category of Black individuals and simultaneously challenge the grammatical norms of white supremacy (Pérez Huber 2010).

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Lallen T. Johnson

Lallen T. Johnson is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Justice, Law and Criminology and a Faculty Fellow of the Metropolitan Policy Center. His research examines how crime and justice outcomes vary across urban space. He is particularly concerned with how social structural and institutional processes facilitate the occurrence of violence within neighborhoods, as well as the spatial concentration of violence across neighborhoods. Some of his studies have been published in Urban Affairs Review, Crime & Delinquency, and the Journal of Criminal Justice.

Talisa J. Carter

TaLisa J. Carter is a native of Long Island, New York, dedicated to understanding the intersection of race/ethnicity, criminological theory and corrections. Currently, Dr. Carter is an Assistant Professor at American University in the Department of Justice, Law & Criminology and an Affiliate Scholar at Urban Institute. Her work has been funded by the National Science Foundation and published in Sociological Forum.