Drugs and Predatory Crime (From Drugs and Crime, V 13, P 203-239, 1990, Michael Tonry and James Q Wilson, eds. -- See NCJ-125241)

• NCJ Number: 125246
• Author(s): J M Chaiken; M R Chaiken
• Date Published: 1990
• Length: 35 pages
• Sponsoring Agency: National Institute of Justice (NIJ); Bureau of Justice Statistics (BJS); US Dept of Justice NIJ Pub
• Sale Source: University of Chicago Press
• Publication Type: Research (Applied/Empirical)
• Language: English
• Country: United States of America

Annotation

Drawing on data from the National Youth Survey, the Rand Inmate Survey, and self-reports of street addicts in New York City, this study concludes that drug abuse and predatory criminality coexist in certain social groups, but in other groups drug abuse often occurs without predatory criminality.

Abstract

Among populations involved in drug abuse and predatory crime, a temporal sequence from drug abuse to predatory criminality is not typical; rather, predatory criminality commonly precedes drug abuse. Drug-abusing offenders who engage in increasingly deviant behavior over time may eventually cross over a threshold to heroin addiction or frequent polydrug abuse. The intensity of their criminal behavior usually escalates substantially. If these high-rate offenders subsequently decrease their drug use, they also reduce their crime rate. Among offenders who use multiple drug types, their predatory-crime rates are typically two or three times higher in periods of heavy drug use than when they are in drug treatment or abstain from drug use. 8 tables and 60 references