Relationship Between Drug Abuse And Crime

Another major subset in the overall prison population in the U.S. is the growing rise in incarceration rates of drug offenders. Professor Blumstein notes that when considering the growth of incarceration rates by specific type of crime, such as murder, robbery, assault, burglary, drugs, and sex offenses during the two decades from 1980 to 2001, the single most important result was that the prison rate for drug offenders increased by a factor of 10; moreover, these drug offenders currently account for the largest percentage of both state and federal prison populations (Blumstein, 2011).

Substance abuse is also a factor in recidivism rates. A sizable amount of prisoners met the DSM-IV criteria for either drug dependence or abuse in 2004, with 45% of those in federal prison and 53% of those in state prison diagnosed (Karberg & Mumola, 2006). The Survey of Inmates in State and Federal Correctional Facilities completed by the Bureau of justice Statistics in 2004 found that almost one third of state prisoners admitted that their crime was committed while they were under the influence of an illegal substance. It also found that one in every three inmates committed their crime to gain drug money (Karberg & Mumola, 2006). Those who were at high risk for substance abuse were more likely to recidivate than those without drug issues (Wikoff, Linhorst, & Morani, 2012).

According to Murray (2013), In 2011 the Bureau of Prison’s reported drug offenders constitute for 46.4 percent of the state prison population and 60 percent of the federal population. Many persons arrested were actively engaged in drug use around the time of their arrest. Current urinalysis surveys of persons arrested in twenty-two major cities in the U.S indicted that roughly over half of arrestees tested positive for at least one illicit drug. While 45 percent of state prisoners and 41 percent of federal prisoners say, they were under the influence of drugs when they committed their offence. Therefore, It is clear that drug related behavior takes up a significant part of the prison population.

There needs to be a change in the criminal justice system. Convicted felons who are charged with any drug felony should not be put into jail or prison because it doesn’t help solve the problem. Rudy Haapanen states, “It is now generally agreed that the criminal justice system fails to rehabilitate offenders, to make them less likely to commit criminal acts as a result of treatment or training; that the system fails to deter potential offenders, to make then less likely to commit criminal acts out of fear of penal sanctions”. In this paper I will discuss drug use in the population, drug dealers, drugs and regulations. I will discuss drug use in the population so that you will see

Over the last few decades, the American criminal justice system has seen an increase in the amount of drug offenses being committed. While the number of drug offenses have increased, the amount of resources for addicts who are in prison have not. Although it has been made clear that drug abuse and crime are linked, the justice system has continued to punish offenders, rather than allowing them treatment. The lack of resources provided to prisoners who have issues with addiction has contributed to the cycle of recidivism in the American criminal justice system.

CRIMINOLOGYDoes drug use cause crime, does crime cause drug use or is the relationship entirely co-incidental?INTRODUCTIONIn this paper I will look at the amount and type of crime caused by drugs, the relationship between drugs and crime and the relationship between alcohol and crime.

Substance use and addiction are often the driving force responsible for placing these individuals into prison in the first place. Authors Annelle B. Primm et al. (2005) reported, “An increased portion of the federal criminal caseload was accounted for by drug prosecutions between 1982 and 1999 (21-236%) while 70% of jail inmates during 1998 had been convicted of a drug offense or had abused drugs regularly.” They further state, “The Bureau of Justice statistics reported that 4 in 10 violent victimizations involved alcohol use; parolees, jail and prison inmates used alcohol (40%) and drugs (20%) at the time of their offense: and two thirds of jail inmates were involved with drugs prior to admissions to jail” (p. 562). Perhaps an individual broke certain laws while under the influence of illicit substances, or they committed crimes in order to feed their drug habits.

Substance abuse and incarceration have had a long, and some would say infamous relationship in the United States. According to May, Cooper, Soderstrom and Jarjoura (2009) (as cited by Federal Bureau of Investigation, 2009) "more than one in three arrests in the United States are related to drug and alcohol use" (p. 669). Many have theorized why there is such a high incarceration rate among substance abusers.

Heroin, Cocaine, Methamphetamine, all cling to their victims. “Almost 70% of all offenders on probation reported using drugs sometime in their lifetimes. About 35% were abusing drugs at the time of their offense” (NIDA). Drug use is the fastest growing problem in the United States. According to the National Survey on Drug Use and Health, in 2013, there were just over 2.8 million new users of illicit drugs, about 7,800 of new users per day. Only seventeen percent of offenders get treatment for their drug use. Criminologists, psychologists, sociologists, and other criminal justice professionals try to determine how to stop this problem. We wonder why crime happens, who commits it, how to stop it, and more recently, what to do with the offenders after

Illicit drug consumption is closely associated with criminal behaviour. Crimes linked with illicit drug consumption include shoplifting, property crime, drug dealing, violence and aggression and driving will be intoxicated. The associated burdens on communities take account of medical, public health, and criminal-justice costs, as well as public disorder and property crime.

In addressing the problem proposed, “Does drug use encourage criminal behavior?” The observation date used to collect data to address this question is a questionnaire and self-report measure. However, for these measures to be scientifically valid they should process both reliability and validity. The reliability of the question presented, “is does it measure what it supposed to measure.” Reliability is the extents to which when measuring these procedures will they yield the same result on a repeated trial. For example, the question asked, “Have you used drugs, and the answer is “yes” then each time the question is asked your answer should be “yes.” If it were unreliable, the answer to the question

A lot of people link drug abuse with crime, at times even with violent crime. This association comes from psychopharmacological association that imply that people may engage in criminal acts after taking some kind of substance known to undermine their judgment as well as self-control result in paranoid thoughts and distortion of inhibitions (Sewell, Poling and Sofuoglu, 189). Though all substances that affect the central nervous system might result in this kind of relationships, scientific information indicates that some type of drugs have a more strong effect than others. Such drugs are alcohol, cocaine, phencyclidine and amphetamines (McCauley, Ruggiero, Resnick and Kilpatrick, 136). Inversely, cannabis and heroin are less associated with desire to commit

It is common knowledge that America has the world’s largest population of prisoners, and in 2008, a study was completed by the Pew Charitable Trusts which indicated that half of the inmates in jail and prison are serving time for nonviolent drug charges (http://www.pewstates.org/news-room/press-releases/new-pew-study-finds-36-percent-increase-in-prison-time-served-85899394970). Since the “War on Drugs” approach about forty years ago, the criminalization of the addict has done very little to address the problem of substance abuse in society. While there is no one clear cause of substance abuse, there have been patterns identified in substance abusers, that may be the underlying factors that lead to the addiction. Some of these factors include mental health and biology.

Question 1- If I were in charge of new drug policies in the United States I would first assess the problems, which is marijuana production, clandestine laboratories and the pharmaceutical distribution.

Drug abuse and crime is not a new concept and the statistics around the problem have continued to rise. According to (Office of Justice Programs, 2011), there were an estimated 1,846,400 state and local arrests for drug abuse in the United States. Additionally, 17 percent of state prisoners and 18 percent of federal inmates said they committed their current offense to obtain money for drugs (Office of Justice Programs, 2011). Based on this information, we can conclude that our criminal justice systems are saturated with drug abusers. The United States has the highest imprisonment rate and about 83 percent of arrests are for possession of illegal drugs (Prisons & Drug Offenders, 2011). Based on these figures, I can conclude that we should be more concerned about solving the drug abusers problems and showing them an alternative lifestyle rather than strict penalty of long term incarceration which will inevitably challenge their ability to be fully functioning citizens after release.