NCJ Number
133888
Date Published
1986
Length
382 pages
Annotation
Based upon the authors' own work and literature reviews, this book reviews the nature and causes of drug abuse and discusses the profile and treatment of drug-using criminals.
Abstract
The study drew its data primarily from drug-using criminals with whom the authors' interacted in their work at St. Elizabeth's Hospital in Washington, D.C. Only those criminals who used other drugs in addition to alcohol were included in the study. An overview of the nature of this work is followed by a literature review designed as a conceptual history that highlights controversies about drug use, with attention to relationships between drugs and crime, drugs and sexual behavior, and drugs and psychosis. The third chapter profiles the drug-using criminal before he became involved with drugs. The chapter concludes that the basic problem for these men was their pre-drug personality, not the drug use per se. Chapter four discusses the thinking and action patterns of the criminal while under the influence of drugs. This provides a frame of reference for succeeding chapters on the role of drugs in the drug-using criminal's life and on the ways in which drugs alter his thinking patterns. One chapter focuses on the choice of a drug. The final two chapters address the treatment of the drug user and the drug-using criminal in a program for change. Chapter bibliographies and a subject index