NCJ Number
205280
Date Published
2004
Length
193 pages
Annotation
This book discusses the illegal drug-using and criminal careers of male offenders incarcerated in prisons in Australia in 2001.
Abstract
This study focused on 2,135 male offenders incarcerated in prisons in Western Australia, Queensland, Tasmania, and the Northern Territory that were aged in their 20's and 30's, reported low levels of education, had a 1 in 4 chance of being Indigenous, and high levels of prior contact with the criminal justice system. On average, they were the most chronic and serious offenders that had come to the attention of police and courts. Offenders reported a variety of property and violent offending behavior. Despite the diversity in offending it was possible to classify three quarters of the offenders into a typology of offending or crime types. These were regular property offenders (27 percent); regular multiple offenders (15 percent); regular violent offenders (8 percent); regular fraud offenders (8 percent); drug sellers (7 percent); drug buyers (7 percent); and homicide offenders (5 percent). The remainder were grouped into a non-regular offenders group (24 percent). The majority of offenders reported using illegal drugs and polydrug use was common. For offenders with any history of property offending (76 percent), the drug-using and criminal careers began with the onset of offending, and then the onset of illegal drug use, which in turn persisted into regular offending followed by regular illegal drug use. These variations indicate that offenders of different crime types started offending and drug use at different ages and the length of time between onset and persistence varied. More frequent and extensive offenders started offending and illegal drug use at a younger age. In many cases, it appeared that the time between onset and persistence of drug use was also shorter for the more chronic offenders. The data suggest that violence associated with drug markets may be more common than first thought.