Self-Reported Criminal Behavior of Narcotic Addicts

• NCJ Number: 157369
• Author(s): J A Inciardi; C D Chambers
• Date Published: Unknown
• Length: 8 pages
• Sale Source: New York State
• Publication Type: Survey
• Language: English
• Country: United States of America
• Note: DCC. Presented at the 33rd Annual Meeting of the Committee on Problems of Drug Dependence, Toronto, Canada, February 16-17, 1971.

Annotation

This paper uses data collected from the self-reports of narcotics addicts, and focuses on the extent of addiction-crime associations.

Abstract

Thirty-eight young male, mostly minority, drug offenders completed interviews in which they discussed their drug, criminal, and treatment histories. The subjects had started using drugs at the median age of 13 years; marijuana was the first illicit drug for the majority of subjects, but heroin was the first narcotic drug used by 79 percent of them, and became the primary drug of addiction for the entire sample. All of the subjects had engaged in criminal behavior to support their drug use, but only 79 percent had arrest records. Of the 6,766 alleged crimes committed by the respondents, less than 1 percent had been cleared by arrest. Ninety-three percent of the crimes reported by the subjects were property crimes, and the remainder were personal violent crimes. Burglary accounted for 37 percent of the property offenses and 35 percent of all reported offenses. 1 table and 12 references