NCJ Number
203550
Date Published
October 2003
Length
6 pages
Annotation
This article examines the links between women’s drug use and their criminality.
Abstract
Recent research has indicated that women offenders are likely to have a history of drug use. Despite this understanding, there are significant gaps in the research concerning women drug users and women offenders. The article reviews the current state of knowledge on women’s drug use and female criminality. Several risk factors have been identified and include having family or parental problems, a history of childhood abuse or neglect, mental illness, a lack of social supports, and associations with drug users. While different studies attribute more or less weight to each risk factor, they are generally interconnected so that the more risk factors a woman has, the more likely she will engage in drug use and/or criminal behavior. Patterns in women’s drug use derived from administrative data collection and from large-scale Australian surveys are reviewed. In general, this information reveals that men are much more likely to report using illicit drugs than women but that women’s drug use has been on the rise in recent years while men’s drug use has been declining. Other research from 2002 has indicated that among detainees who provided urine samples, female detainees were more likely than their male counterparts to test positive for amphetamines, benzodiazepines, and opiates. The article next looks specifically at the knowledge concerning female offenders, which varies depending upon the stage of the criminal justice system under examination. A review of the administrative data, large-scale surveys, and in-depth research in this area is provided. Most research, while varied, shows a link between female drug use and female criminal behavior. Moreover, research from the United States indicates that the relationship between female drug use and criminality is dynamic and heterogenous, which reveals there is no one reason why women become involved in drug use and crime. Limitations of the current research, and a subsequent truncated knowledge of female drug use and criminality, call for an integrated drug/crime monitoring system in Australia. There is a pressing need for further research in order to offer appropriate criminal justice programs to women offenders. Figure, notes, references