ABSTRACT

This chapter provides suggestions for insider researchers who study crime and end with a discussion of insider research's promises and position within criminology. It utilizes a C. Wright Mills approach, which calls for understanding people by linking history, social structure, and biography. The chapter contextualizes the drug robbers within a particular historical era, then tied to their life course. The promise of qualitative research, especially ethnographic field research, lies in its ability to clarify theory and show it in action. It also provides powerful firsthand accounts, which allow researchers to link and reformulate various theories creatively. Drug market shifts, along with structural and cultural forces that occurred outside of the "streets", shaped and influenced author study participants over a criminal and legal life course. The chapter argues that the distance-in terms of the perceived legitimacy-between insider and outsider research lessens, especially since insider research can enhance and broaden analytical and theoretical possibilities for understanding crime.