The 1AC’s division between legitimate and illegitimate business makes women invisible

The analysis of crime within licit and illicit economies has been most explicitly developed and exemplified in relation to drugs markets (see for example Dorn and South, 1990; Dorn et al., 1992; Ruggiero and South, 1995; Ruggiero and Vass, 1992; South, 1997). This research has identified seven diverse groups involved in drug trafficking. These groups range from those that are loosely organized and less professional, such as ‘trading charities’, to the more organized ‘business sideliners’ who are primarily involved in legitimate businesses. Similar to the latter group are ‘criminal diversifiers’ or professional criminals, whereas corrupt officials who obtain cash for private or other gain feature in the category, ‘state sponsored enterprise’ (Croall, 1998). South acknowledges, however, that women’s position in the drug economy is rarely explored (South, 2002: 920). The literature on crime and markets and the detailed research on crime and the drugs market provide collectively significant insights into the operation of the informal and criminal economies, in particular the relationships and blurred boundaries between legitimate and illegitimate businesses (see also Findlay, 1998; Hobbs, 1988, 1994, 1995). Ruggiero has Davies: Is economic crime a man’s game? 293 often noted the extent to which the ‘criminal’ labour market parallels the legitimate one (Ruggiero, 1996). He specifically points to the mirroring of the licit economy in the drug economy (Ruggiero, 2000: 22) as well as the blurred distinctions between employment and unemployment and between licit and illicit work in the marketplace or ‘urban bazaar’ (Ruggiero, 2000: 30). While the examination of the embeddedness of crime and markets is particularly sophisticated in respect of how the illegal drug economy operates, for feminist theoreticians there remain inherent problems. Women remain largely invisible and gender is only partially explored through masculinity. There are few examples or analyses of women doing crime and femininity is under-explored. Gendering the economic and the economy The developments noted above expand our understanding of crime as a commercial relationship in the market place. However, the work remains disappointing from a feminist theoretical perspective. It remains open to the earliest type of feminist critique when women were largely neglected, hidden and largely invisible. Where they do feature, this is as exceptions to the rule. Hobbs (1995) gives just one example of a female drug dealer: Moira’s entrance into crime was based upon the rational acknowledgement that an entrepreneurial opportunity was staring her in the face. The chance of making money from crime was apparent to her by the evident incompetence of her boyfriend. She sells dope. (Hobbs, 1995: 23) Hobbs’s commentary simply extends from the boys and men to Moira with some additional interesting points about her use of gender and sexuality in her criminal business. The theoretical contributions made by Hobbs to the gendering of the economy, however, can for the most part be accredited to his work around boys ‘doing the business’ and masculinity rather than femininity. In a similar vein, Ruggiero (2000: 44) discusses occupational barriers in illegal economies based on race and ethnicity in some detail, but not gender. Women are briefly alluded to as the victims of human trafficking (Ruggiero, 2000: 95) and they are also briefly acknowledged at the margins of the informal and criminal economies. In this respect women feature as ‘ “grafters”, an inexperienced army of users, a criminal reserve army’ (Ruggiero, 2000: 21). In Taylor’s work (1999a), despite a lengthy section within the context of a chapter reviewing the social transitions of the late 20th century entitled ‘Crises of Masculinity and the Gender Order’, women’s participation in crime as offenders is little referred to. Given Taylor’s initial recognition of the gender order, together with the growing evidence that women are engaged in and are increasingly jailed for drug-related offences (Carlen, 2002), it is disappointing that women feature in such a limited way in the remainder of the analysis of crime and markets.