Drugs and Crime: A Survey of N.S.W. (New South Wales) Prison Property Offenders, 1984

• NCJ Number: 119570
• Author(s): I Dobinson; P Ward
• Date Published: 1989
• Length: 95 pages
• Sponsoring Agency: New South Wales
• Sale Source: New South Wales Bureau of Crime Statistics and Research
• Publication Type: Survey
• Language: English
• Country: Australia
• Note: Research Study Number 2.

Annotation

Interviews with 225 New South Wales inmates in 1984 were designed to determine the extent to which property offenders use particular addictive drugs, especially heroin, and to explore the relationship between regular drug use and the commission of property crime.

Abstract

The user group was compared with the nonuser group. For 78.2 percent of heroin users, property crime was their main source of income. For nonusers, 64.4 percent reported so-called licit sources (job and social security) as their main source of income. Users also generated more income from property crime and committed significantly more burglaries, armed robberies and frauds than nonusers in the specified period prior to arrest. As consumption and expenditure increased, so did the amounts of income generated by property crime. The involvement of users in particular types of property crime (armed robbery and break-and-enter) also increased with drug consumption. These findings suggest that prerelease and postrelease drug treatment programs are important in reducing criminal behavior. This implies the identification of drug abusers prior to sentencing. 41 tables, 77-item bibliography.