The Effects Of Illicit Drugs On The Nation 's Rate Of Violent Crime

The problems inherent in this shift in focus are now coming to a head as youth violence has reached crisis proportions. In recent years, with juveniles increasingly responsible for major and violent crimes, public sentiment in

Urban centers throughout the United States of America and the world have experienced violence within the inner city communities. Many of the inner city communities are low-income and are poverty stricken. The spread of gang membership within the communities has influenced many young adolescents. Activities such as drug dealing, theft, assaults, and murders drive law enforcement to prevent crime. The justice system is also being changed due to the increase in minor violence. One of the reasons is due to people being part of minority groups. The charges pushed by the judicial

The police response to juvenile gun crime was because the youth crime during the 1980s and 1990s caused a shift in the justice system to a more punitive, “get tough” approach to dealing with violent juvenile offenders. In this change to decline the gun violence and homicides in recent years: “ Dealing with these crimes to demand quick action, many police

Assessment of tracking juvenile arrests and crime is important to know so the government knows what laws are working and what laws need to be revised. Murder arrests in 2001 were near their lowest levels since at least 1980 for both white and black youth. Between 1993 and 2001, murder rates for white juveniles declined 62% while the rate for black juveniles declined 79%. In 2001 the robbery arrests rates for both black youth and white youth were at a 20 year low. The 2001 aggravated assault arrest rate for black juveniles was much closer to its 1980 level than was the rate for white juveniles. The juvenile arrest rates for weapons violations and murder more than doubled between 1987 and the peak year 1993. After 1993 both rates fell substantially the juvenile arrest rate for weapons law violations was cut in half falling 49% and returning to the 1987 level. Between 1980 and 1993 the juvenile arrest rate for drug abuse violations remained within a limited range. Between 1993 and 1997 however the rate grew 77% by

The number of people incarcerated in America has steeply risen since the beginning of the War on Drugs. In 1980, about 300,000 individuals were in jail. (Alexander, 2010) In 2000, the number rose to over one million, and at the start of 2008, there were 2.3 million adults in prison in America (Pew Center on the States, 2008). These increases in the rate of incarceration are traceable to the War on Drugs (Nunn, 2001). “Convictions for drug offenses are the single most important cause of the explosion in incarceration in the United States (Alexander, 2010).” Drug offenses account for two thirds of the rise in the federal prison population between 1985 and 2000 (Nunn, 2001).

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).

In the early to mid-1980, there was a drug epidemic in urban cities across the nation. As a result of this, Congress created the Anti-Drug Abuse Act of 1986, which gave drug offenders a higher sentence in the criminal justice system. Over the past thirty years, the United States has seen an unprecedented rise in the rate of incarceration. Between the years 1972-2000, the rate of incarceration has risen at an astonishing rate of 500%. This act in particular, had no toleration towards these offenses, consequently leading to the disappearance of probation “federal courts sentenced [twenty-six] percent of convicted drug offenders to probation. By 2014, the proportion had fallen to [six] percent, with judges sending nearly all drug offenders to prison” (“Public Safety Performance”). Not only has the rate of incarceration increased so has the sentences for these offences “from 1980 to 2011, the average prison sentence imposed on drug offenders increased [three] percent—from 54.6 to 74.2 months—even as it declined [three] percent for all other offenders” (“Public Safety Performance Project”). This leads to the larger issue in the incarceration system, which is that penalties do not match the offenses. With the Anti-Drug Abuse Act of 1986 in practice, it influenced the establishment of a five-year mandatory minimum for small drug traffickers. If a

Lastly, we will look at the pulling lever strategy used in High Point. Like the authors say in “The Impact of Drug Market Pulling Levers Policing on Neighborhood Violence”, the reason why they did this study was to “examine the impact of the various place‐based pulling levers interventions that were implemented in High Point” (Corsaro, Hunt, Hipple, McGarrell). The reader can interpret from the article that the purpose is to conclude what context is needed for pulling lever strategies to work in deterrence. They go into an in‐depth statistical analysis describing the sensitivity present as there could be things like “types of selection biases.” Statisticians must be careful when navigating data as we found before where the Panel could not conclude that the pulling lever strategies had a direct relationship between the crime rates. In the article they do come to a conclusion where they find that ”although pulling levers has shown potential when focused on gangs and groups involved with networks of chronic, violent offenders, far less is known about its capacity to diminish violent crime associated with locally operated street drug markets” (Corsaro, Hunt, Hipple, McGarrell). Essentially, it is describing the limitations that are presented with pulling lever strategies. Like multiple of the other articles, they have found that this strategy works for gang-related violence. They question whether the strategy would be as effective if it were applied to crime that is associated

Crimes that are drug related are numerous in the United States also attract media attention. But, not enough attention is given to this matter because crimes are committed all the time. To find out the difference between drug related and non drug related crimes one would need to ask themselves if drugs play an important role in the decisions of people while under the influence of drugs Seddon (2000). More specifically, “Does illegal drug usage affect the occurrence of violent crimes?”

I am from different areas in the United States such as Missouri, Utah and Pennsylvania, which is where I was born. I have never been in trouble with the law nor really interacted with it so I can’t really say much. I will say that in Pennsylvania I use to live by Erie which had a pretty high crime rate and have been in the less admired parts of town or what people call the ghetto. I always saw the news of shootings and robbing mostly within that area. I was always upset by it, but I realized there was nothing I could do as a 10 year old. Missouri and Utah where I lived hardly had any crime I have experienced. The main issue there was speeding.

There has been speculation that the decriminalization of all drugs in Portugal has caused a rapid increase in the number of crimes and homicides in Portugal. Between 2001- 2006, the number of homicides increased by 40% from 105 to 148 per year (Murkin, 1). This may be attributed to the fact that now that drugs are legal, drug availability is more prevalent making it much harder for dealers to compete for customers and eventually resulting in turf battles ending in homicides. This could also be a product of directly drug related murders since getting high, causing the person be have less judgment over his or her self, may lead to reckless actions. However, there has been no concrete evidence supporting that the decriminalization of drugs or drug use itself has had any impact on this rise in homicide rate. This is merely a coincidence statistically but may have deeper prevalence if examined much closer. Crime in general since 2001 in Portugal has increased as well, however, these are mostly associated with petty thefts and robberies (Murkin, 1). This, as well, seems associated with the decriminalization of drugs, but researchers have deduced that this increase in document crimes is due to the fact that police officers can now focus their efforts on dealing with these criminals and other offenders of the law rather then having to deal with drug related crimes everyday. This enables more dangerous criminals to be focused on and decreases the number of drug related offenders in

When comes America, it is easy to see how crimes and violence how increased over the years due to crippling of the economy. It is with the income inequality that crime has a strong connection. An American economist named Gary Becker, “pronounces that an increase in income inequality can have a huge and robust effect of increasing crime rates”. A study of a 2002 world bank showed the United States, was ranked 3rd among the most income-unequal nations in the world with the worst in income growth. It is with the slow increase of America’s income inequality so has the crime rate (Patterson,

He did a research on why violent crime went down. And he found a plenty of theories, he picked that of the. Several explanations were given in connection with the lead theory. One of them was the first one is the crime went down when the economy is booming and goes up when it is in a slump. The second one is, the number of you young men increases, so does crime. He conclude that there is a problem common to all of these theories it is hard to tease out actual proof. And the econometrics consistently fails to explain most of the crime rates “Jim Manzi book uncontrolled “ Also, The drugs particular were heroin, which produced limited violence; the second was crack which generated amazing levels of crimes and lastly marijuana, describe

Drug abuse and predatory criminality go hand in hand in a few, select social groups, while in others, drug abuse most often occurs without criminal behavior (other than the fact they’re doing drugs.) Despite what most might think, drug abuse typically follows predatory criminality. As drug abusers keep trying harder drugs due to necessity, the intensity of their criminal behavior escalates dramatically. When using more than one type of drug at one time, studies show that the frequency of criminal activity increases. But, when these drug offenders decrease the amount of drugs they put in their system, their rate of criminal activity also decreases, which shows that drugs can cause a person to commit crime. This shows that drug usage can cause crime and stopping drug usage can slow or even halt criminal activity.

In truth, the problem isn't quite as pressing as it was a few years ago. With crime rates dropping, so is juvenile crime. But felonies by kids had exploded over the previous 10 years, a legacy of the crack trade and armed gangs, so the recent decline is still a dip in a high plateau. From 1985 to 1995, juvenile arrests for violent crimes rose 67%. Perhaps a fifth of all violent crimes is the work of teens.