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Clearly These Percentages Are Significant. A Major Finding Of The Research ...

Clearly these percentages are significant.
A major finding of the research was that 65% of those arrested tested positive for drugs, around a third tested positive for opiates and/or Cocaine; less than 10% were positive for amphetamines and just under 50% had injected heroin. Clearly this reveals a link between drugs and crime but on this alone they cannot be said to cause crime. During the interviews, however, around 90% of those who tested positive for class ‘A' drugs reported they had committed property crimes as a result of their addiction in the last twelve months. Research carried out in other countries show similar findings. According to the Bureau of Justice Statistics in the US, 50% of the inmates in US prisons in 1991 divulged that they had used illegal drugs in the month prior to their arrest and 30% admitted that they were under the influence of an illicit drug when they committed their offence. An interesting finding is that offenders who abuse both illegal drugs and alcohol commit more criminal activities that those who only abuse an illegal drug. It is hard not to conclude that criminal activity is linked to drug taking.
There are no clear causal links, however, between drugs and crime, despite much research on the subject that has shown that there are links between drugs and offending. A briefing paper for the Criminal Justice Social Work Development Centre for Scotland argues that ‘hanging around' with those that do risky things, may ‘encourage or require the passage into various forms of crime to generate funds for purchasing drugs'. The paper argues that a further problem is that drug misuse leads to further financial and social difficulties; these in themselves generate more crime.A survey done amongst a Scottish young offender's institution revealed that 95% of its inhabitants admitted taking illegal drugs. Yet again this Scottish survey does not give a satisfactory explanation for this result.
It has been suggested that there are two explanations for this apparent correlation between crime and drug abuse. The first suggests that drug use adversely affects a persons ‘mood, judgement and self-control'; the second we've already mentioned, that is that the high cost of drugs leads the user to commit ‘economically oriented crime'. However, even these explanations are not entirely satisfactory. In the case of the first it is true that drugs can affect people in the way mentioned, however, not all people who take drugs experience these effects uniformly; second not everyone who takes drugs and experiences these symptoms commit crimes; therefore it is not unreasonable to argue that another factor must be involved. The second argument also holds true for the idea that the need to keep oneself supplied with drugs leads to crime.
Glenn Walters tries to resolve this conundrum with his ‘lifestyle theory of human decision'.


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