Drug Use and Felony Crime: Biochemical Credibility and Unsettled Questions (From Clinical Treatment of the Criminal Offender in Outpatient Mental Health Settings: New and Emerging Perspectives, P 85-110, 1990, Nathaniel J Pallone and Sol Chaneles, eds. -- See NCJ-126044)

• NCJ Number: 126050
• Author(s): J Pallone
• Date Published: 1990
• Length: 26 pages
• Sale Source: Haworth Press, Inc
• Publication Type: Survey
• Language: English
• Country: United States of America
• Note: This article is based on a paper presented at the 35th International Congress on Alcoholism and Drug Dependence, Oslo, August 1988.

Annotation

In reviewing research on the drug-crime link, this paper focuses on the biochemical behavioral influences and issues not yet resolved by research to date.

Abstract

Precise linkages between drug abuse and felony crime have not yet been established, in some measure because prospective linkages have been studied not only through the variant methods of social and "hard" science, but also because the methods of biochemical laboratory assay -- developed to detect the presence of drugs in the physical system -- have become more discerning. Representative studies from the social sciences (relying on the self-report of convicted felons) and from the "hard" sciences (using "more" and "less" sensitive methods of laboratory assay) yield data that propose, at the extremes, that 1 of every 6 or 1 of every 2 felonies is at the least "lubricated" (drug effects enhance the state of mind or behavior critical to the crime) by drug use or abuse. Research is currently insufficient to identify the differential effects of specific substances and their effects on the facilitation of particular types of felony crime. This paper discusses the requirements of future research in this area along with the impact of "pathological intoxication" laws in several States and the burgeoning of the "designer drug" industry. 2 figures and 20 references