Revisiting Goldstein’s Drugs‑Violence Nexus: Expanding the Framework for the Globalized Era

By Marieke Liem and Kim Moeller

 In 1985, Goldstein developed a framework to capture the relationships between drugs and violence in the United States, laying a foundation for future research on drug-related violence. Since then, the rise of synthetic drugs, including in Europe, and the introduction of online drug transactions have drastically changed illicit drug markets and associated violence contexts. Technological innovations, increased globalization, and diversification of drug types call for an expansion of Goldstein’s framework, given the accompanying changes in violence. In this paper, we review the conceptual and empirical research on drugs and violence including contributions from Europe and propose refinements to the tripartite framework. This expanded framework specifies the context of the violence in terms of different stages of the drug route, and access- and consumption related events at the individual level. This more fine-grained classification will be able to better capture the characteristics of drug-related violence in Europe and other world regions in a globalized era.  

International Criminology https://doi.org/10.1007/s43576-025-00160-w 2025.