NCJ Number
108228
Date Published
1988
Length
244 pages
Annotation
Data from intensive interviews with 100 juveniles were used to examine the relationship between drugs, alcohol, and crime among the respondents.
Abstract
The study site was a medium-sized New York State city similar to other medium-sized cities in New York State and the Nation in terms of age and ethnic distributions, socioeconomic structure, and income distribution. The students were selected from a junior and senior high school serving a city district with various socioeconomic characteristics. The interviews focused on whether drug use leads to crime, why and how youths sell drugs, how thefts are linked to drug use, how assaultive crimes are related to drug and alcohol use, risk factors in drug and alcohol use and delinquency, and whether criminal justice sanctions deter juvenile criminality and drug use. Findings indicate that seriously delinquent youths are usually regular drug and alcohol users and that linkages between drugs and crime are complex and have different meanings for youths depending on time, place, and interactions with others. Virtually all delinquents stated they did not commit thefts and other property crimes to obtain drug money. Youths relied on conventional wisdom in explaining how drugs and alcohol influence the criminality of others, but not themselves. Fear of criminal sanctions as an adult has a deterrent effect among segments of juvenile delinquents. Chapter notes, 9 tables, a subject index, and 264 references.