No Way Out: Precarious Living in the Shadow of Poverty and Drug Dealing
Waverly Duck, "No Way Out: Precarious Living in the Shadow of Poverty and Drug Dealing"
English | ISBN: 022629806X | 2015 | 192 pages | PDF | 755 KB
English | ISBN: 022629806X | 2015 | 192 pages | PDF | 755 KB
In 2005 Waverly Duck was called to a town he calls Bristol Hill to serve as an expert witness in the sentencing of drug dealer Jonathan Wilson. Convicted as an accessory to the murder of a federal witness and that of a fellow drug dealer, Jonathan faced the death penalty, and Duck was there to provide evidence that the environment in which Jonathan had grown up mitigated the seriousness of his alleged crimes. Duck’s exploration led him to Jonathan’s church, his elementary, middle, and high schools, the juvenile facility where he had previously been incarcerated, his family and friends, other drug dealers, and residents who knew him or knew of him. After extensive ethnographic observations, Duck found himself seriously troubled and uncertain: Are Jonathan and others like him a danger to society? Or is it the converse—is society a danger to them?
Duck’s short stay in Bristol Hill quickly transformed into a long-term study—one that forms the core of
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