‘Black dealers kill people and come from the projects; Whites dealers kill people and come from nice families’: contextualized racialized perceptions of related criminal behaviors within an attribution theory framework

ABSTRACT

Some believe certain racial groups are associated with specific behaviors, like homicide, drug dealing, and drug use. It is unclear if these perceptions are connected or if culpability as offender or victim for these behaviors is also racialized. The present study examines perceptions of people’s involvement in these related criminal behaviors. Using semi-structured interviews, data were gathered from men and women (n=32) living in 15 contiguous neighborhoods in a mid-sized city in the northeastern US. All study area neighborhoods experienced the effects of the opioid epidemic and repercussions of subsidized public housing policy changes, and some had high levels of violent and drug crimes. Interview data were analyzed using thematic content analysis applying iterative, open coding techniques to identify themes and recurrent concepts across participants. Findings show that respondents viewed Black persons engaged in homicides and drug dealers as offenders and white persons engaged in drug use as victims. Crimes attributed to Black people were also contextualized as a problem among gang members and people receiving subsidized public housing. Applying the racial threat hypothesis, study findings and implications for research on racialized perceptions of related criminal behaviors and culpability as offenders or victims are discussed within an attribution theory framework.

KEYWORDS :

• Racialization
• racial threat hypothesis
• attribution theory framework
• homicide

Studies and official statistics have consistently highlighted the prevalence of racial biases in various aspects of the criminal justice system (Kovera 2019; Lehmann and Meldrum 2024; Rucker and Richeson 2021). Racial biases are also evident in public opinion, whereby perceptions of criminal behaviors are often racialized (Nelson, Gabbidon, and Boisvert 2015). Racialization refers to how race defines a group of people and their behaviors (Covington 1995). People who racialize behaviors believe that certain racial or ethnic groups are more likely than others to engage in certain acts. Much of the research in this area focuses on racialized perceptions of specific crimes (e.g., homicide), with less attention paid to involvement in a variety of criminal behaviors. Most studies on racialized perceptions have also failed to meaningfully address social conditions that likely inform perceptions surrounding related criminal behaviors. Therefore, it is not well understood whether perceptions of related criminal behaviors are racialized and if that racialization is contextualized.

Several lines of evidence suggest a strong relationship between the commission of homicides and various drug crimes (Riley 1998; Rosenfeld, Roth, and Wallman 2023; Varano et al. 2004), though questions remain about whether people perceive these crimes to be linked and if such perceptions are racialized. For example, are drug-related homicides racialized? Do individuals perceive racial differences among those who sell and use drugs versus those who use drugs and experience a drug overdose? What social conditions contribute to racialized perceptions? Further, it is unclear if culpability for a combination of these crimes is also racialized. Namely, are people involved in homicides, drug dealing, and drug use perceived as people who committed a crime or victims, and is this perception racialized?

The current study places these questions within an attribution theory framework and assesses racialization within the context of social conditions that can amplify racial perceptions: subsidized public housing and the opioid epidemic. This study aims to shed light on how racism intersects with perceptions of people engaged in often overlapping behaviors. To do so, semi-structured interviews were conducted with inner-city residents living in 15 neighborhoods in a mid-sized northeastern city experiencing the repercussions of the opioid epidemic and struggling to integrate communities after a reduction in public housing. This study advances knowledge by examining how perceptions of culpability are influenced by the race of individuals perceived to engage in these behaviors and social conditions, and how racialized perceptions vary across different types of crimes and their combination.

Racialization of homicides

It is well established that racialization of homicides occurs among the general population (Ahlin and Gabbidon 2022; Covington 1995), meaning there is a common belief that homicides are more likely to be committed by people of color. Data on homicides, including gun violence, demonstrate a significantly higher risk of death by homicide for non-Hispanic Black men (Centers for Disease Control and Prevention [CDC] 2021). There are myriad reasons associated with higher risk among persons of color including poverty, segregation, systemic criminal justice system bias at arrest, conviction, and sentencing, and other cumulative disadvantages (Kurlychek and Johnson 2019; Rucker and Richeson 2021). Over time, homicide arrest rates of individuals identified as White and Black have converged, yet progress in addressing disparities ‘stalled from the 1980s to the 1990s,’ a period of heightened drug markets (LaFree, Baumer, and O’Brien 2010, 75). As of the mid-1990s, the homicide arrest rate for Black people was ten times higher than for White people in more than a quarter of the largest US cities (LaFree, Baumer, and O’Brien 2010).

Racialization of drug use and addiction

Unlike homicide, drug use and addiction are more often perceived to be social problems among White people. Compared to Black people, White people have a higher lifetime prevalence of drug use (Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration 2023). In accordance, Uniform Crime Report data show that most arrests for drug abuse violations were of White people (71.2%) compared to Black people (26.1%) (Federal Bureau of Investigation [FBI] 2019). These percentages indicate an overrepresentation of drug abuse violations compared to the US population for White people (61.6%) and a more than double overrepresentation among Black people (12.4%) (US Census Bureau 2020). The literature also highlights public stigmatization of people who use drugs in general, and White people are more likely than other racial groups to be stigmatized for heroin use and opioid addiction (Dertadian, Caruana, and Maher 2023; Goodyear, Ahluwalia, and Chavanne 2022).

Racialization of drug dealing

The racial trends in drug use extend to drug markets. Among young men ages 14–22, Black people are less likely than White people to self-report selling drugs (Baptiste-Roberts and Hossain 2018; Fairlie 2002). Arrests for drug crimes, including distribution, remain much higher for Black people compared to White people despite an overall decrease in drug law violation arrests since 1991 (Mitchell 2009; Snyder 2011). Specifically, Black people are disproportionately arrested for selling drugs and are stereotyped as more serious, dangerous, and culpable among people who deal drugs (Coomber 2023; Mitchell and Caudy 2017; Spohn 2015; Steen, Engen, and Gainey 2005). Disparities in arrest are often attributed to neighborhood conditions and police discretion to use differential law enforcement practices including undercover operations (Gaston 2019; Gaston, Brunson, and Ayeni 2023). Such targeted enforcement of spaces occupied by people who are racially-ethnically minoritized perpetuates criminal justice system disparities (Mitchell and Caudy 2017). Data reinforces these disparities. At yearend 2020, Black people comprised 41.6% of people incarcerated in federal prisons for a drug offense which was a substantial overrepresentation compared to their share of the US population (Carson 2022).

Theory and prior research

Any broad-brush attribution of criminality discounts individuality, labeling behavior based on traits (e.g., race, character) rather than circumstances (e.g., over-policing), and can result in the racialization of people and their behaviors (Chiricos, Welch, and Gertz 2004; Ross 1977; Unnever 2008). Scholars can use attribution theory as a broad framework to understand racialization of behaviors. Muhammad’s (2010) work portrays this concept when he suggests that ‘when a white person commits a crime it is often seen as an individual failing, but when a black person commits a crime, it is viewed as an indication of the broader failings of black America in general’ (as cited in Pfaff 2017, 146). US culture has historically linked race and biology, leading to beliefs connecting criminality with race, which has become an enduring factor in public opinion (Cramer 2020). These narratives are perpetuated by politics and the media when individual situations are purported to represent the group, resulting in a reverse ecological fallacy. One example of such dog whistle racism was a political television advertisement sponsored by Republicans during the 1988 presidential campaign. In this advertisement, Willie Horton, a Black man incarcerated in prison for a homicide and robbery who committed another crime while on weekend furlough, was used to evoke and fuel racist stereotypes about crime and normalize racism by conflating race and crime (Feld 2017; Saul 2024). Such narratives can shape perceptions of crime as expected or shocking depending on demographic traits or neighborhood context (see Leverentz 2012), and these narratives may be ‘grounded within a specific community’s structure and history’ (Fader, VanZant, and Henson 2020, 1136).

Attribution of crime as the failings of a race or ethnicity places the causes of human behavior to internal factors (e.g., biology) or external factors (e.g., social context) rather than accounting for criminal justice system operations and biases, and other forms of systemic racism. For example, violence among Black people is often attributed to their race rather than externalities such as situations or social contexts (Metzler, Jackson, and Trudeau 2021; Oliver 2003). Research by Muhammad (2010) describes how racialization is perpetuated because crime remains to be viewed as part of the inherent biology of Black Americans. Similarly, Black people are perceived as being generally prone to violence (Bass, Choi, and Dickter 2023; Hinton 2016; Sniderman and Piazza 1993) and racial-ethnic minorities involved in the drug trade have been associated with urban gang violence (Howell and Decker 1999; Walker and Cesar 2020). Dangerousness and culpability for drug offenses are often racialized, leading to harsher sentences for underrepresented people (Spohn and Sample 2013; Steen, Engen, and Gainey 2005; Testa and Lee 2021). In contrast, White people are more often believed to be low-level suburban drug suppliers to their friends, involved in drug sales to support their own use, or suburban buyers who come to the inner-city to purchase from Black people who deal drugs (see Duck and Rawls 2012; Jacques and Wright 2015).

Interestingly, the media portrayal of the opioid epidemic has shifted perceptions of drug use away from urban, people of color who use crack and whose moral failings were deemed responsible for their addiction toward a sympathetic depiction of suburban and rural White people addicted to heroin who fell prey to pharmaceutical companies’ greed and physician wrongdoing (Netherland and Hansen 2016). Such perceptions reflect a racialized belief that opioid addiction is beyond personal control while crack addiction is a choice. Hence, Wood and Elliott (2020, 5) found that White people more strongly stigmatized White people who use opioids compared to Black people who use opioids, suggesting their perceptions were based on a desire to preserve ‘ingroup social identity by treating ingroup member norm violators more harshly than outgroup members.’

The attribution of dangerousness, violence, and culpability to Black people suggests that some people believe offending behaviors result from individuals choosing to engage in crime rather than being pushed or pulled into a criminal lifestyle or in response to contextual strains like stressful life circumstances and neighborhood conditions (Agnew 2014; Roman, Decker, and Pyrooz 2017; Walters 2020). At the same time, such attribution also discounts that White people may make choices based on their personal attributes to commit the same crimes (Altikriti, Nedelec, and Barnes 2022).

Limitations of existing research

Investigating racialized perceptions of people who commit crimes such as homicide, drug dealing, and drug use, and their overlap is increasingly important. This is particularly true given the public perception that these crimes are at an all-time high and how perceptions negatively impact people from racial minority groups who are viewed as posing a greater threat than White people (Blalock 1967; Bonilla-Silva 2021). Extant literature substantially contributes to knowledge on the racialization of involvement in crimes, and the present study has implications for the discussion on the racialization of people who commit crimes compared to victims. However, research on perceptions of the overlap between homicides, drug dealing, and drug use is less understood, and these gaps in the literature require further study.

Prior studies focus largely on the experience of people who deal drugs (Caulkins et al. 1999; Jacques and Wright 2015; Sandberg and Copes 2013), with less attention to community members’ perceptions of the drug trade occurring in their neighborhoods. Pfaff (2017, 47) notes the paucity of studies on drug use or drug sales, despite how much ‘academic and media attention the war on drugs receives.’ This is problematic because the opioid epidemic has (1) impacted communities through increased criminal activity and (2) added financial costs to local governments’ social services (Paris, Rowley, and Frank 2023). Questions remain about community members’ perceptions of people who use drugs and people who deal drugs.

Another limitation of the existing research is while there is much research on perceptions of criminality surrounding the circumstances of disparate involvement in the criminal justice system, there is less scholarly attention paid to perceptions of criminality within the context of other social conditions. Attribution theory suggests perceptions of criminal involvement are based on traits such as race rather than circumstances, with little focus on the overlap between individual traits and context. As one example, public housing is a contextual social condition where homicide, drug-dealing, and drug use is more prevalent (Duck 2015; Rosen 2020). Relatedly, Hayat (2016) describes how Section 8 housing policies and the resultant mobility of persons of color have become synonymous with racialized perceptions of housing subsidy recipients. There are few studies examining perceptions related to the overlap between race, public housing, and crime committed by individuals, which is surprising given the body of research on the influence of a move toward Section 8 housing on crime rates (Carr and Koppa 2020; Sciandra et al. 2013). Further, while research exemplifies crime related experiences of public housing subsidy recipients (Rosen 2020), one of the most pressing gaps in this research is the limited attention paid to non-subsidized residents’ perceptions of criminal behavior among people who receive Section 8.

Setting

The current study seeks to address whether racialized perceptions related to homicide, drug dealing, and drug use are connected and whether culpability is racialized, necessitating a study site with sufficient racial diversity where these social problems were occurring. This study was conducted in 15 contiguous neighborhoods in a mid-size northeastern city in the US whose population comprised predominantly White people (66.8%) and about one-third of its residents were Black people (33.2%). The study site was ideal for this research because the neighborhoods experienced 20% of the city’s homicides and had the largest number of drug overdose deaths (>800; mostly due to heroin/fentanyl) between 2007–2020. Black men had the highest rate of homicide victimization (2.26), and most homicides victims were Black men (65.7%) (Table 1), while most of the overdose deaths occurred among White men (Table 1). The overdose fatalities reflected the magnitude of the opioid epidemic in the study area and the surrounding region which disproportionately affected men in these neighborhoods. Black men had a slightly lower drug overdose death rate (1.63) compared to White men (1.91). Of all drug types, in 2019, the northeast region of the US had the largest percentage of arrests (8%) for the sale or manufacturing of heroin, cocaine, and their derivatives, almost double the US total (4.2%) (FBI 2019). These neighborhoods also experienced several drug-related homicides, and news accounts detailed participation in local drug dealing by both Black and White people, providing an opportunity to assess residents’ perceptions of people involved in homicides, drug dealing, and drug use, including heroin.

Table 1. Events during 2007–2020 in 15 neighborhoods by sex and race, N (rate).

	Black	White	Other	Total
Homicide victims
Male	82 (2.26)	24 (0.09)	4 (0.42)	110 (0.34)
Female	12 (0.27)	4 (0.01)	0 (0.00)	16 (0.04)
Total	94 (1.17)	28 (0.05)	4 (0.21)	126 (0.18)
Drug overdose deaths
Male	59 (1.63)	540 (1.91)	4 (0.41)	603 (1.84)
Female	21 (0.48)	218 (0.70)	5 (0.51)	244 (0.67)
Total	80 (0.99)	758 (1.28)	9 (0.46)	847 (1.22)

Rate = [number of events/average number of people with these demographic characteristics living in the 15 neighborhoods during the study period] * 100.

The study area also experienced public housing policy shifts. Starting in 2010 there was a redistribution of community members between the neighborhoods due to the closure of government supported housing and the move toward Section 8, a housing choice voucher system. Under Section 8, housing subsidy recipients enter the private rental market, and the government subsidizes housing by paying the difference between 30 percent of the recipient’s income and the average rental price. The adoption of Section 8 in this community led to many subsidized housing recipients moving from their racial minority neighborhoods to predominantly White neighborhoods.

Data and methods

Semi-structured interviews

The study employed a series of semi-structured interviews to examine racialized perceptions of homicide, drug dealing, and drug use within the study area context. This is an ideal qualitative approach allowing for a set of standardized open-ended questions to be asked of multiple respondents while also permitting added information to guide the iterative data collection as discussions unfolded (Savin-Baden and Major 2023). The interview protocol contained a set series of questions about personal views on violence, drug dealing, and drug use in the study area, specifically focusing on heroin-related drug overdoses and drug-related homicides. After a series of initial questions confirming descriptive information (e.g., demographics, neighborhood tenure), interview prompts included items such as: Tell me about the social problems in the neighborhood. What changes in the neighborhoods have contributed to a rise in drug use and overdoses? Why do you think there has been increased violence in the area? Who is responsible for the violence and drug crimes occurring in these neighborhoods? All participants were asked all questions from the interview protocol to limit potential interviewer effects. Follow-up questions were incorporated to seek clarity and delve into relevant areas. Interview protocol questions focused on the three crimes and did not ask participants about specific contextual influences to limit a priming effect on respondents’ answers. The Pennsylvania State University institutional review board approved the research protocol.

Sampling strategy

Between 2020 and 2022, respondents were recruited using purposive and snowball sampling techniques for a diverse sample across gender, race, and neighborhood. An initial recruitment using a study specific social media account and page was employed to identify participants. This page outlined the purpose of the study, researcher contact information, and remuneration for participation. For this study, four relevant community-based social media accounts were identified and their administrators agreed to me posting the study flier. As a measure of participant confidentiality, the commenting feature was disabled. Participants identified through these social media sites were then asked for referrals to round out the sample and include a broader representation of community members. Inclusion criteria were being over 18 and being a current resident of a study area neighborhood. Thirty-two one-on-one telephone and in-person interviews lasting between 60 and 90 minutes long (skewed toward 90 minutes) were audio-recorded and transcribed verbatim using the transcription function in Microsoft Word. Data were manually cleaned for accuracy. In-person interviews occurred in a variety of settings including respondents’ homes, places of business, and coffee shops. All participants were offered a $30 gift card. The institutional review board waived consent requirements, though, to preserve confidentiality, all participants were given pseudonyms and study identification numbers. The respondents were 14 women who were White (43.75%), 5 women who were Black (15.63%), 10 men who were White (31.25%), and 3 men who were Black (9.37%). Respondents were drawn from each of the 15 study area neighborhoods. In their lifetime, most participants (n = 22; 68.75%) only ever lived in one of these neighborhoods with a few having lived in two (n = 7; 21.88%) or three over their lifetime (n = 3; 9.37%).

Reflexivity

Addressing one’s position in qualitative research, known as reflexivity, is a key step to understanding how a researcher may influence the research process (Savin-Baden and Major 2023). As such, it is important to note that I was responsible for the study’s conceptualization and data collection and analysis. I lived in the study area for more than two decades more than 20 years ago, and since moving have maintained social and professional contacts. I routinely visit at least three times a year for periods ranging from a few days to several weeks, staying with various family members and friends in the study area neighborhoods. The familiarity with the study area and observations of its evolution over time through news accounts and conversations with community leaders drove the reasoning behind the research. This familiarity with the study area and its unique dialect is a strength because it eased gatekeeping among respondents who may have felt uneasy talking to an outsider about community problems (Massoud 2022). I sought to create a nonjudgmental space for actively seeking varied perspectives from current residents which may include racist generalizations. The goal was to make respondents comfortable sharing their views without debate. I acknowledge my positionality as a former study area resident but also a White woman, mid-career academic with training in criminology and criminal justice who researches topics where racism is prevalent. I acknowledge that my positionality influenced the project to some extent and my resources proved to be important tools that helped me to make meaning of the text and gather data through honest conversations with residents. My positionality also meant that I was not a target of racialized generalizations, allowing me to develop trust and build the rapport needed for this study.

Analysis

I analyzed data using thematic content analysis, an inductive and flexible approach to capture latent and semantic meanings from the data (Braun and Clarke 2022). Iterative open coding techniques were used to identify themes and recurrent concepts across participants and develop thick descriptions of respondents’ perceptions (Creswell and Miller 2000; Geertz 2008). First, interviews were read carefully three times to gain familiarity with the content and to begin identifying patterns and themes in the data and across interviews. Second, each interview was again reviewed two additional times where general themes were identified: (1) homicides and drug dealing are a Black person problem and (2) drug use and overdoses are a White person problem. Finally, all interviews were reviewed an additional four times to code excerpts that aligned with study-specific themes (Josselson and Hammack 2021). Member-checking was used to ensure accurate interpretation of the data (Braun and Clarke 2022). During the analysis process, respondent validation of interpreted data was employed with eight respondents (two representatives from each sex-race dyad: women who are White; men who are White; women who are Black; men who are Black) to assess validity of the findings (Savin-Baden and Major 2023). Representative respondent quotes are used to describe residents’ perspectives and impressions to support the identified themes. Study participant identifiers are used for quote attribution and respondent race is provided as it is relevant to the topic.

Findings

Homicides and drug dealing are a Black person problem

The first theme addresses how homicides and drug dealing were racialized, with respondents attributing such offenses primarily to Black people. Respondents’ descriptions of homicides and drug dealing within their neighborhoods emphasized their perceptions that Black people were primarily responsible for committing these crimes. These crimes were often described as occurring in connection with each other (e.g., drug dealing related homicides). Interestingly, respondents also contextualized these connected racializations. Respondents expressed the racialization of homicides and drug dealing as acts committed by Black people and specifically as being a problem among Black people in a gang receiving subsidized housing or, more broadly, Black people in a gang. Respondents who identified White people as persons who commit these types of crimes described White persons as an anomaly among people committing such offenses and White people’s involvement was not contextualized. Few respondents failed to mention race when describing these crimes, resulting in no racialization.

Black people commit crimes

In line with attribution theory, about 65% of respondents overtly attributed crimes to Black community members. These respondents described racial demographics as the root cause of homicides and drug dealing in the study area, specifically categorizing Black people as committing such offenses. Interviewees described the homicides between Black men and Black people who sell drugs living in their neighborhoods, reflecting a broad racialization of these crimes. The following quote represents what interviewees described as the ‘driving source’ and ‘underlying cause’ of crime in the community.

My neighborhood right now is the convergence point for the old Black neighborhoods’ residents, and all the bullshit and fighting that goes with these places and them. Blacks are just expanding their shooting gallery and where they sell [drugs]. (P2385; White man in his 50s)

This view was congruent with other respondents as they recounted events that occurred within the neighborhoods and contemplated their views on demographic shifts as the neighborhoods diversified. After describing a recent carjacking and several shootings in the area, one respondent pointedly voiced her view, exemplifying a racialized perspective.

All the negative situations in my neighborhood got worse the darker it got. We were blessed and fortunate that none of us had to worry about those types of problems when we were growing up. (P5050; White woman in her 70s)

The use of the word ‘us’ and the racial epithet ‘darker’ emphasizes the racial differences in the respondent’s negative perceptions of the neighborhood’s demographics at present compared to the past. The comment also ‘otherizes’ persons involved in these crimes. Otherizing means that someone views or treats a person or group as different from oneself (see Spivak 1998; Staszak 2020). Such perceptions were consistent across respondents who racialized the community’s social problems. One respondent described a potential underlying cause of such a racial threat perception, stating:

[Black people] are moving up in the world; that’s driving [White people] crazy. (P3340; Black man in his 40s)

Respondents often mentioned a shift in racial demographics across study neighborhoods and tied it to homicides and drug crimes in the study area. Overall, the generalized racial perceptions of crimes may have reflected a shift in community demographics as Black residents moved within the study area. This would suggest that racialized views could be influenced by increased proximity to people perceived to commit crimes and greater racial integration within neighborhoods. Closing the social distance between racial groups may have contributed to racialized perceptions as proximity of racial threats narrowed rather than increased familiarity which is believed to reduce racialized threats (Drakulich 2012; Pettigrew and Tropp 2006; Rae et al. 2022).

In contrast with expectations of attribution theory, circumstances contextualized respondents’ racialized perceptions. A main contextualized theme was that Black people in a gang who also received subsidized housing were believed to be responsible for drug dealing and homicides in this community. This belief was prevalent among about 40% of respondents and may reflect community changes as public housing developments in two of the neighborhoods predominantly home to people who are Black were recently downsized in response to a discrimination lawsuit leading to an increase in Section 8 rentals in majority White neighborhoods. Black people comprised 90% of people who received Section 8 in the study area and a segment of respondents viewed Black people in a gang receiving subsidized housing as a cause of the neighborhoods’ problems. For several respondents, there was a perception that people in a gang who previously lived in ‘the projects,’ sold drugs, and committed homicides inhabited the Section 8 rental properties in their neighborhoods. One respondent noted:

Heroin dealing in [the projects] has drifted down Main Street. The gangs moved in, and drugs are being dealt out of the Section 8 houses; I mean I’ve seen the guy across the street selling [drugs]. [My neighborhood is now] the [two housing] projects combined together with a bunch of people that were already here, [who are] trying to fight the [housing] system. But it’s almost like a losing battle because what can you do?(P0123; White man in his 50s)

This quote exemplifies respondents feelings that an escalation in violence was drug-related and pinpointed its beginnings to when the public housing buildings were demolished or downsized. Another respondent shared that a young Black father was fatally shot as he was getting his daughter off the school bus; this drive-by shooting took place in the middle of the day in front of the respondent’s home. He described the crime as a territorial dispute between people who dealt drugs and belonged to rival gangs from the ‘projects.’

One neighborhood was home to one of the worst streets for drug dealing. Multiple respondents described it as the city’s main drug corridor and the local paper had recently published an exposé on the increase in violence and drug overdoses due to heroin in that area. This street also had a substantial portion of Section 8 housing. Some respondents drew contextualized and racialized conclusions about the relationship between Section 8, gangs, and violence, though not specifically homicide. For example, one respondent described an event he experienced:

I was driving over to my grandmother’s house and there was a drug deal; it just went down right in front of me at the stop sign. One Black guy came from one of the houses and somebody else was crossing the street and, boom, they did it and went their separate ways. I see that kind of stuff all the time since Section 8 came to the neighborhood. I don’t know if these two were gang bangers, but we know they’re here. (P3208; White man in his 40s)

Probing further to learn more about violence in the neighborhood, this respondent connected the drug dealing to gun violence which he viewed as common and described how one afternoon a family member found bullet holes in their shower walls after hearing popping noises coming from the street.

While Section 8 rentals were concentrated in five of the 15 neighborhoods, it impacted the entire study area to varying degrees. Attribution of homicides and drug dealing to people in a gang receiving subsidized housing was most common among the 14 respondents (43.75%) who lived in neighborhoods experiencing the greatest influx of Section 8 housing subsidy recipients. It may be that such beliefs were amplified by the legally mandated decentralization of public housing developments that drove Black community members into predominantly White neighborhoods. The policy shift toward Section 8 housing led to the 15 neighborhoods becoming less racially segregated and closer proximity could have contributed to increased perceptions of racialized threat.

Less prevalent was a racialized perspective contextualizing homicide and drug dealing among Black people as a gang problem without reference to subsidized housing programs. About 19% of respondents held this perspective which may include Black people in a gang who lived in neighborhoods not home to a sizeable population receiving housing subsidies. One such neighborhood had one of the highest crime rates in the entire city. While several people talked about how gang-related violence encroached on their personal safety, one event was a gang- and drug-related homicide involving a revenge killing related to a territorial dispute as illustrated below.

We had the mailman shot and killed on our street … like feet away from where my kids catch the bus. (P0120; Black woman in her 30s)

This crime was a retaliation killing carried out by people in a gang from one of the neighborhoods without a public housing development, a low proportion of Section 8 rentals, and a large proportion of Black people as residents. It was later determined to be a case of mistaken identity, and a man lost his life as he prepared to start his work route. In contrast, one respondent shared her views on the relationships between gangs, violence, and drug dealing. Without mentioning race, she acknowledged the connection between these crimes, and contextualized the overlap as gang related.

The gangs that sell [drugs] to people with addictions are responsible for our problems. There’s a lot of gang shootings; some people get shot right in their cars. (P1387; White woman in her 20s)

White people who commit crimes are the anomaly

Racialized perceptions of White people engaging in crimes aligned with attribution theory as they were not contextualized. A sizable portion of respondents (30%) viewed White persons as engaging in homicides and drug dealing, though these respondents painted White people as a rarity amongst such people who committed a crime. While the study area experienced high-profile drug-related homicides committed by both Black and White men, only Black people engaged in these crimes were viewed as responsible for crimes deemed to threaten the public safety of others. It could be the recency of Black residents’ movement into neighborhoods mostly populated by White residents that made respondents more aware of Black people’s involvement in crimes whereas the same crimes perpetrated by White people were familiar or old news and therefore viewed as less problematic. Perceptions may have also been influenced by media coverage of events.

A respondent discussed the homicide of a White man by a rival person who sold drugs. She chalked it up to aberration rather than a persistent problem, despite it being the second occurrence of an intraracial drug-related homicide among White people in a period of 8 months. Describing her view of the second such crime, she stated:

He was murdered in a house that was right near where my parents live; helicopters were flying, trying to locate his body after tips were called into the police. That [crime] was more extreme; White people don’t kill each other like the Blacks do. (P2902; White woman in her 30s)

For those who perceived White people as participating in such crimes, respondents often expressed shock when relaying stories or recalling news headlines. This was true even amongst people who were directly involved in criminal activities, such as drug use. One respondent, a person who formerly used heroin, recounted incidents involving a White peer and further demonstrated the sentiment that White people who committed a crime were viewed as the anomaly. Despite his own drug use, this respondent expressed disbelief that a White peer would become involved in drug-related gang activities.

A friend of mine had an older brother. We all went to high school together, and right after high school, [my friend’s brother] got into some gang activity involving the selling of drugs which was really surprising because he and I had a lot of advanced classes together and White kids don’t deal; they aren’t in gangs. (P0243; White man in his 40s)

The perspective espoused by P0243 was interesting. Much local news coverage and lore reiterated by study respondents suggested that people in gangs were primarily from racially minoritized backgrounds and neighborhoods where Black residents comprised the majority. However, in Spring of 2023 local news coverage about the local gang problem described how modern gangs in the city were different from 1990s gangs because they lacked structure evidenced through outward appearances including wearing gang colors, and using hand signals or calls to signify membership and loyalty. These 1990s gangs also had tangible hierarchies and expectations of lower ranked members taking directives from higher ranking members. This newspaper article and others reporting on the gang problems in the study area focused on Black people in gangs. Structure and organization amongst members are a key element of gangs (see Decker, Melde, and Pyrooz 2013) and it is possible that White people in gangs in the study area never had structure or it was not on the same scale as gangs with Black members. Perhaps a lack of evident structure shaped community members’ perceptions of what constitutes a gang in the study area and contributed to a lack of contextualization of crimes among White people. Alternatively, the study area may have been experiencing a decrease in gang membership among White youth which would mimic findings by Esbensen and Carson (2012) which show a marked decline in gang activity among White youth compared to racially minoritized youth.

The perception that it was unusual for White people in the study area to commit crimes crossed racial lines; both White and Black respondents viewed White people who committed a crime as a departure from expectations. For example, a Black woman, recalled a time when she saw a White neighbor selling drugs in the alleyway behind her house. She described how she felt shocked at what she saw while still labeling the youth as ‘adorable’ and ‘good.’

I couldn’t believe it…the [White] kid living right up the street, who was just this adorable kid living with his grandparents and taking care of everything for them, was a drug dealer. [The police] knew it and they wanted to get him in the act, and they had undercover people working [the case]. He was a good kid, but they did end up arresting him. (P0508; Black woman in her 30s)

Overall, a portion of respondents acknowledged White people’s involvement in homicides and drug dealing, though these accounts were relayed with astonishment and often conveyed disbelief at their involvement suggesting that racialization of crimes may be moderated by other factors. Additionally, none of the respondents perceived White people to be primarily responsible for crimes in their neighborhoods. White people’s involvement in crime was acknowledged, though blame was attributed to Black people.

Discourse among a few respondents (15%) revealed that White people committed numerous drug-related homicides in the study area. However, there were no contextualized descriptions of these joint crimes occurring among a subset of White people like there was with crimes committed by Black people. This was novel given that White people who deal drugs involved in drug-related homicides were not organized around a ‘gang,’ per se, though their actions certainly fell within the definition of gang activities including partnering for protection, conflict over territory and customers, and violence. Perhaps because the White people involved in such crimes did not self-identify or establish themselves as being involved in gangs, respondents also did not categorize them as being involved in gang activities.

One respondent’s perceptions of a White perpetrated drug-related homicide were benign compared to those expressed about Black people who commit drug-related homicides. In this depiction, the murder was committed by a pair of cousins, two White men, and recalling the event the respondent said, ‘I grew up with them, they’re nice and so is their family. But the family is involved in a lot of the craziness around here’ (P0444; White woman in her 40s). Her description of the people perpetrating these crimes and their family as ‘nice’ was unexpected given that she shared her concrete understanding of the homicide and the cousins’ involvement.

He was killed over drug money and territory; the cousins killed him themselves after a contract [killing] fell through. I’ve read some of the transcripts from the trial testimony and the details of the crime are pretty mind blowing. The cousins decapitated him because the ground was too cold to dig a hole big enough for his body. (P0444; White woman in her 40s)

When respondents did not contextualize drug-related homicides among those who were White, their perceptions were at times framed by indeterminate beliefs that ‘changes in the neighborhood’ and ‘drugs made things worse’ rather than outright suggesting that a specific set of people or circumstances were responsible for the crimes.

Absence of racialization

Attribution theory was not relevant in a small proportion of respondents’ perceptions. There was some discussion of crimes occurring in the study area without reference to race, though it was not a common theme in the interviews (<10%). It was interesting that only a few respondents did not express any racial perceptions, Black or White, considering the literature identifying racialization of violent crime as common (Ahlin and Gabbidon 2022; Peterson and Krivo 2008). One respondent shared that he was directly impacted by such crimes. He recounted that over his lifetime he lived in two contiguous neighborhoods in the study area; one was predominantly home to those who are Black and the other had a majority White population. He described that he had been robbed at gun point ‘several times,’ ‘saw people lying dead on my street,’ and ‘lived next to a trap house’ (P1555; White man in his 30s). He experienced these crimes in both neighborhoods multiple times though he did not ascribe them to a particular racial group. Rather, he viewed them as an expected ‘risk of living in the city.’

Drug use and overdoses are a White person problem

Attribution theory less evident in a second theme which represented respondents’ racialized perceptions of those who are White as people who use drugs and overdose on heroin. Unlike perceptions of Black people, when contextualized drug use experiences were identified, White people were perceived as falling victim to circumstances beyond their control (e.g., addiction) rather than choosing to engage in criminal enterprises (e.g., gangs). These racialized perceptions espoused a belief that crimes were committed by Black people because of internal factors related to who they are whereas when the same crimes were committed by White people, they were more likely attributed to external circumstances (see Muhammad 2010).

A large proportion (about 32%) of respondents’ descriptions of White people who use drugs and those who overdosed were inconsistent with a culpability mindset. Their views instead aligned with a broader victimization perspective associated with circumstances. Whereas Black people were deemed as personally responsible for homicides and drug dealing, and the overlap between these crimes was contextualized, White people who used drugs, including those who overdosed, were viewed as victims of addiction and therefore less blameworthy.

Interestingly, only 20% of racialized perceptions of people who used drugs, particularly those who overdosed on heroin, aligned with the trope of White people who use drugs are addicted to heroin and the belief that the opioid epidemic spared the Black (and Hispanic) communities. This finding, while small, is congruent with research that identifies opioid addiction as more prevalent among White communities (Hansen, Netherland, and Herzberg 2023). As one example, a respondent assessed what she saw as addiction.

My son and I found heroin packets on our street and that same day there was a White lady outside my house sitting in a parked car. She looked like an addict. I called the police and told them it looked like she was messing with drugs; the police never came. (P3210; White woman in her 30s)

Notably, the ‘drug use as addiction’ perception was expressed less frequently than expected given the extant literature and the high number of drug overdose deaths in the study area.

Respondent descriptions involved language and specific phrases to attach a victim label to people who used drugs or overdosed. They used terms and phrases like ‘battled’ drugs or ‘struggled to stay sober.’ Others described a more tangible victimization resulting from drug use. The following quote is an example of this embodied victimization:

There’s one person I’ll never forget… she was very heavily into the drug scene like me but couldn’t quit … ended up having an overdose … she recovered but had some minor brain damage. (P0243; White man in his 40s)

Overall, the victimization focus reflected a perception that White people were not responsible for their behavior and that blame lies elsewhere including addiction, family, and life events. Varying respondent experiences illuminated different perspectives. One respondent touched on the intergenerational transmission of drug addiction and how it transpired among White families in a victimizing way.

A lot of the White kids’ parents and relatives were also addicts. You can’t really keep your kids from your drug habits, you know? So, if your parents are using drugs, you kind of wonder, can it really be that bad? It happened to my sister’s kids. (P3048; White woman in her 50s)

Familiarity with people who overdosed shaped views, and several respondents were quick to talk about their personal losses from the opioid epidemic. One respondent recalled how a 38-year-old White man injected heroin laced with fentanyl, and while it was a shock to his family, his friends who were also people who used drugs knew that dying was a possibility each time they used. Deflecting blame away from the drug use, he highlighted his friend’s positive attributes saying:

[He was a] funny and witty guy… someone just fun to be around. It could’ve happened to any number of us, but it wasn’t his fault; he didn’t know it was poisoned. (P0212; White man in his 30s)

Others recounted experiences with personal victimization as reasons for their own drug use. One example was a respondent who identified his drug use as rooted in the loss of his brother in a car accident; an event that catapulted his drug use beyond smoking marijuana.

And for me, I mean I got into it pretty hard core. I was into, you know, cocaine. I was really into heroin… I had access to pills, but I wanted that fix immediately. I wanted to forget. (P0243; White man in his 40s)

This respondent described his drug use as an escape from the reality of life events. This experience epitomized others’ beliefs that people who used drugs were victims of circumstances rather than attributing behavior to their race. When asked about drug use in the community, one respondent believed ‘a lot of people just don’t have a lot of hope’ (P1387; White woman in her 20s) rather than focusing on personal responsibility. White people were viewed as victims of their drug use and overdoses; these crimes were viewed as beyond their control. As a result, White people who used drugs were depicted as addicted, being drawn into the drug lifestyle as a result, and a drain on emergency medical sources (EMS) as one respondent noted, ‘I saw the same guy revived by EMS twice in one day’ (P0123; White man in his 50s). These perceptions were congruent with the data on drug-related overdose deaths occurring in the study area and align with a drug-dependence model of addiction. Such perceptions comport with attribution theory, attributing drug use and overdose to personal traits (e.g., Bogdan et al. 2023), though it is unclear if such perceptions would be held for people who were not White as the data did not reveal any beliefs about drug use or overdose among Black people. No respondents mentioned Black people as involved in either drug use or overdoses, and only one respondent did not racialize drug use. She shared how her young son was exposed to heroin in his school.

[When] my youngest was in kindergarten, one of the other children brought in stamp bags of heroin and was passing them out in class. (P0245; White woman in her 40s)

The child believed the stamp bags, which belonged to his father, were stickers, and when probed, the respondent did not want to speculate about the race of the family stating that ‘it could have been any one of his classmates.’

Discussion

Prior studies have shown that some people racialize crimes such as homicides, drug dealing, and drug use. This study adds to the body of knowledge on racialization by identifying perceptions of culpability as dependent on the race of the people engaged in these behaviors. Racialized perceptions were crime specific. Specifically, homicides and drug dealing were most frequently racialized as a problem among Black people while White people who engaged in the same behaviors were deemed to be outside of the norm. Drug use and overdoses were racialized as occurring among White persons without reference to Black people who use drugs. Broadly, study respondents viewed Black people as ‘responsible for our crime problems,’ and White persons were more likely to be viewed as ‘nice’ and their criminal involvement was not perceived as detrimental to the community.

This study also contributes to our understanding of a related line of research which demonstrates that some people hold racialized perceptions by believing that people’s actions result from their traits while underplaying the importance of situation or context (Chiricos, Welch, and Gertz 2004; Ross 1977; Unnever 2008). These perceptions uphold attribution theory. The findings of the present study also add to the discourse on this subject by showing that some behaviors were contextualized demonstrating that circumstances beyond traits are relevant in racialized perceptions contrary to attribution theory. Further, contextualization of perceptions may mitigate racialized attributions by acknowledging that circumstances such as gang membership and living in public housing developments or Section 8 rental properties may contribute to racialized blame beyond race itself. This contextualization was most prominent among perceptions of Black people involved in homicides and drug dealing and White people who used drugs and experienced overdose, as these crimes were seen as occurring at least in part due circumstances beyond race. A lack of study respondents’ contextualization of White persons who committed homicides or sold drugs may reflect media coverage of local gangs and their activities, rote application of what defines a gang (e.g., structure), or a decrease in gang membership among White people.

In the present study during in-group assessments, White respondents described White people who use drugs as victims and no Black respondents discussed drug use or overdoses as a problem in the community. White and Black respondents espoused negative perceptions of homicides and drug dealing committed by Black people in the study area with less culpability attributed to White people who committed a crime. For example, White people were more likely to be perceived as low-level people who deal drugs, or endeared members of the community; one was described as ‘adorable.’ The culpability associated with homicide and drug dealing was racialized when describing Black people who commit crimes, whereas White people engaged in the same behaviors were not viewed in the same manner.

Such perceptions could also reflect a latent feeling of resentment contributing to racial threat (Abascal 2023). Racial attribution of criminality to Black men is well-documented (Bass, Choi, and Dickter 2023; Hinton 2016; Russell 1998) and it is possible that racialized perceptions of homicides and drug-dealing stemmed from recent racial threats. The racial threat hypothesis suggests that an increase in the Black population will threaten the economic or political position of White people in the community (Blalock 1967; Bobo and Hutchings 1996; Liska, Lawrence, and Benson 1981). Racial threats to existing social order can contribute to people’s racialization of behaviors (Chiricos, Justin, and Peter 2020). Several racial threats were apparent in this community, including forced racial desegregation of public housing after a lawsuit resulted in a shift away from public housing to a voucher-based system allowing recipients to use their subsidies in the private rental market. This change may have influenced racialized perceptions in the study area. Additional work is needed to further tease out the relationship between these factors and explore why the racial threat hypothesis, but not racial contact theory, was supported. According to racial contact theory, racial prejudice should decrease when racial groups have more contact with each other. The level of racialization among study respondents was surprising given the racial desegregation experienced in the study area resulting from Section 8 housing vouchers which reduced the social distance between racial groups. It is possible the social distance between people from different racial groups shrunk, though their interactions may not have increased or may have been negative; positive interactions are more likely to improve tolerance (Aberson, Ferguson, and Allen 2021; Drakulich 2012; Pettigrew and Tropp 2006).

It is also possible that backward telescoping contributed to diminished culpability perceptions of White peoples’ involvement in homicides and drug-dealing compared to activities of newer residents, which may have been given greater weight. These activities may have been more accessible and memorable for White respondents as they represented actions by the outgroup (Bartholow 2023; Miller 2007). As such, more recent events or those that are perceived as more memorable may receive greater attributions of blame, or culpability, for their effects on the community, including putting others at risk of victimization and exposure to violence. While people who sold drugs in the study area were White and Black, selling drugs was viewed as an activity engaged in by Black people in a gang whose targeted shootings put others’ safety at risk. In contradiction, White people who dealt drugs were perceived more passively and were viewed as unorganized and less of a threat to the community.

While much racialization literature focuses on involvement in singular crimes, the present study extends that narrative by identifying that racialization also occurs among drug-related homicides. Respondents frequently described the overlaps between homicides perpetrated by Black people as drug-dealing related disputes and rivalries. This overlap was a common theme among discussions of Black people in a gang generally and those deemed to be living in public housing developments or Section 8 rental housing. This could reflect a racialized cumulative culpability perspective where multiple social issues are grouped and racialized like how multiple disadvantages accrue, culminate, and reinforce each other leading to prejudices and differential treatment (Kurlychek and Johnson 2019).

One unanticipated finding was a lack of discussion around Black people who use drugs. People who use drugs in this community were depicted as White people with drug addictions or other contextual circumstances driving use and contributing to overdoses. This could be a result of the sample which included more White respondents, and those who described their own drug use or experiences losing people they knew to drug overdoses were White people. This suggests that despite housing integration efforts, people in the study area may have remained segregated in their friendship networks and acquaintance groups. According to social distance perspectives, bias should be reduced with increased nearness (Drakulich 2012; Pettigrew and Tropp 2006) though improvements in tolerance via reductions in social distance were not evident in the data. The finding may alternatively reflect respondents’ beliefs that drug addiction is an ‘individual failing’ or a behavior outside of one’s own control (Kelley 1971, as cited in; Pfaff 2017, 146). The data must be interpreted with caution as there are still many unanswered questions and further work is required to establish reliability.

It is also somewhat surprising that there was no discussion of the economic conditions that may be responsible for homicides, drug dealing, or drug use among people who are Black or White. For example, both the second wave of the opioid epidemic which gained traction shortly after the Great Recession of 2008 and the COVID-19 pandemic led to higher-than-normal unemployment rates which could contribute to substance use (Bureau of Labor Statistics 2023). Respondents did not use these events to contextualize any behaviors, despite research demonstrating a link between economic hardships and substance use (Nagelhout et al. 2017). It is unclear if economic conditions could be useful in explaining racialized perceptions of homicides. Violent crime has been on a downward trend since the mid-1990s and was not linked to the Great Recession (Rosenfeld 2014), while homicide rates across US cities remained unchanged or increased during COVID-19 lockdowns and stay-at-home-orders (Boman and Gallupe 2020). The relationship between drug dealing and economic conditions is more straightforward as limited employment options may drive people to sell drugs (Allen and Lo 2012; Salinas 2023). However, according to LaFree et al. (2010, 92), ‘illegal drug activity may have more to do with explaining the racial gap in arrests than do the key variables of economic inequality and residential integration.’

This research, while exploratory, has some practical implications. Primarily, this study demonstrated a need to emphasize social integration when policy changes surrounding subsidized housing contributed to a reduction in housing segregation. Incoming residents were entering neighborhoods with a recent history of White flight which contributed to residential instability as social networks shifted (Ahlin 2023). A fear of the unknown may have contributed to racialized perceptions; people may be more fearful of others with whom they have not yet formed social networks or interracial interactions may not have been positive (Aberson, Ferguson, and Allen 2021; Drakulich 2012; Northcutt Bohmert and DeMaris 2015; Pettigrew and Tropp 2006; Rae et al. 2022).

Limitations and suggestions for future work

Despite its contributions to the literature, readers should be cognizant of study limitations. First, this study focused on residents living within the city limits and did not include people who lived in contiguous suburbs. There was likely some diffusion of behaviors along the borders between city and suburban boundaries as it is unlikely that people who commit crimes and use drugs will cease their behaviors simply because they have stepped outside of the city. For example, the data presented on drug overdose deaths (Table 1) shows a substantial drug problem in the study area, though it may be an overestimate as data on drug overdose deaths was only available at the zip code level which capture some suburban areas contiguous to the city. While neighborhoods and their boundaries are finite for public service purposes, they are not useful indicators of criminal risk, particularly along the perimeters.

Second, this study provides an in-depth understanding of respondents’ perceptions of homicides, drug-dealing, and drug use surrounding the heroin epidemic in a racially diverse area though White residents predominantly occupied the study area. Future research should employ a more diverse sample with additional perspectives including people directly involved in drug-dealing and populations with greater racial/ethnic variation (e.g., Hispanic). Also, historical context is an important consideration for this study. The findings are heavily rooted in the opioid epidemic, which contributed to many overdoses and deaths in this community. It is possible that the findings would differ in another context or in an area with a different drug problem.

Conclusion

This study sheds important light on racialized beliefs about homicides, drug dealing, and drug use in two key areas: (1) connections between homicide and drug dealing and (2) contextualized racializations of people considered to be people who committed a crime or victims. Overall, this study assessed racialized beliefs within an attribution theory framework to understand perceptions of homicides, drug dealing, and drug use. The findings suggest that homicides, particularly those perpetrated by gangs engaged in the drug trade, were racialized, and viewed more harshly when attributed to Black people who were members of this community. Though White people also committed homicides and sold drugs, White people engaged in these crimes were viewed as anomalies and were more often perceived as victims of addiction and therefore less blameworthy than Black people for such social problems and attribution theory was less applicable. The present study lays the groundwork for placing racial threat hypothesis within an attribution framework, and future research on the topic will further our understanding of racialized perceptions of connected criminal behaviors and culpability.

Acknowledgements

I would like to thank the editor and reviewers for their comments which greatly improved the paper. Appreciation is also extended to Cassandra Atkin-Plunk for their comments on an earlier draft of the manuscript and Florida Atlantic University for the opportunity to present this work on their campus.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Eileen M. Ahlin

Eileen M. Ahlin, Ph.D. is Associate Professor of Criminal Justice at Penn State Harrisburg. Her research focuses on violence, corrections, and the application of social controls within an ecological framework.