ABSTRACT
Robbery is all about material gain and few offenses rival the riches promised by drug robbery. The allure of drug robbery transcended utilitarian notions of risk and reward. A number of offenders waxed philosophical about their motivations, claiming such offenses were activated, at least in part, by moralistic concerns. Readers must keep in mind that motivation is an embedded construct operating in the foreground of offenders' lives. The threat of victim-retaliation is widely assumed in discussions of drug robbery. For some offenders, drug robbery constituted prosocial behavior designed to sanction dealers who had committed some perceived violation. As hard-drug addicts, respondents were especially sensitive about how their status was perceived by others—particularly those who supplied them. "Free" drugs typically are requested when users are most desperate, usually after all other means of income-generation have been exhausted. Material deficits are relieved, but only fleetingly, since money and drugs typically are burned as fast as they are obtained.
