NCJ Number
98184
Journal
British Journal of Criminology Volume: 25 Issue: 1 Dated: (January 1985) Pages: 46-59
Date Published
1985
Length
14 pages
Annotation
Official records on a Swedish birth cohort of 15,117 persons born in 1953 and living in the Stockholm area on November 1, 1963, support the contention that individuals susceptible to both drug abuse and crime are drawn increasingly from the same population.
Abstract
Data for the cohort, which consisted of 7,719 males and 7,398 females, was gathered continuously through 1979 from several sources, including police files and the Child Welfare Committee. Approximately 18 percent of this cohort was arrested at least once from 1964 through the first half of 1979. Males were far more likely to be arrested than females over this period. The data revealed a clear maturation pattern, with arrests peaking around 15 years and then declining. While the 158 males identified as intravenous drug users by police screening accounted for only 6.6 percent of the 2,392 males ever arrested in the cohort, they accounted for 36.9 percent of all male arrests over the 1967-79 period. The 65 females in this subpopulation represented 14.5 percent of all females arrested at least once over the entire study period and 47.9 percent of all female arrests over the 1967-79 period. This overrepresentation became even more pronounced in the latter years for both sexes. The drug-using subpopulations were overrepresented in all arrest categories. A surprising finding was the high proportion of violent crime arrests among drug abusers. The data also suggested that women develop later criminal careers than men in Sweden and that intravenous drug use is even more concentrated in female career criminals than among males. Tables and over 35 references are supplied.