Effect of Legal Supervision on Narcotic Addiction and Criminal Behavior

• NCJ Number: 126042
• Author(s): D Anglin; E P Deschenes; G Speckart
• Date Published: 1987
• Length: 42 pages
• Grant Number(s): 86-IJ-CX-0069
• Sponsoring Agency: National Institute of Justice (NIJ); US Dept of Justice NIJ Pub
• Corporate Author: University of California, Los Angeles
• Sale Source: National Institute of Justice/; NCJRS Photocopy Services
• Publication Format: Document
• Publication Type: Research (Applied/Empirical)
• Language: English
• Country: United States of America
• Note: Presented at the American Society of Criminology annual meeting, Montreal, Canada, November 1987.

Annotation

This paper presents a literature review of the relationship between drug abuse and crime and the results of a study to determine what the general effect of legal supervision on the drug use and criminal behavior of narcotics addicts, the time course effects of legal supervision, and the differential effects of various types of legal supervision and the presence of urine testing.

Abstract

The three samples used in this study include male first admissions to several California methadone maintenance programs and two groups of male methadone patients selected from other clinics. The retrospective longitudinal interview process allowed examination of both the narcotic addiction and criminal careers of the subjects. The findings support the hypotheses that legal supervision is effective in reducing both narcotics use and criminal behavior; legal supervision combined with urinalysis is more effective than supervision alone. The results did not support the hypothesis that higher levels of urine testing would produce higher levels of conformity and lower levels of the controlled behaviors. Substantial differences between Chicanos and white in responding to legal supervision were noted, but these differences varied with other factors related to sample selection. The first set of analyses show that there is a significant rebound following discharge after the first legal supervision. The second set of analyses confirmed the association between legal supervision, narcotic addiction, and criminal behavior. The final analyses tested the impact of different types of legal supervision. 6 tables, 13 figures, and 89 references.