NCJ Number
226615
Journal
International Journal of Offender Therapy and Comparative Criminology Volume: 53 Issue: 2 Dated: April 2009 Pages: 168-190
Date Published
April 2009
Length
23 pages
Annotation
This study examined sociological, social psychological, and psychopathological correlates of substance abuse disorders in a nationally representative sample of U.S. jail inmates.
Abstract
Based on the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders fourth edition, text revision (DSM-IV-TR), the percentages of inmates with substance-use disorders by offense were 58.4 percent for violent offenders, 70.6 percent for property offenders, 70.2 percent for drug offenders, and 63.8 percent for public-order offenders. Unique risk factors for substance-use disorders were offense specific and largely in the sociological domain. Several social psychological factors were predictive of substance-use disorders, regardless of current offenses. These factors include established patterns of crime and childhood social environments supportive of criminal behaviors and substance use (i.e., peer involvement in criminal activities and illicit drug use and parental substance use). Inmates with substance-use disorders were more likely to report participation in 12-step or awareness programs before incarceration than those without a substance-use disorder. Regardless of type of index offense, inmates with substance-use disorders were more likely to have depression symptoms in the year preceding incarceration compared to those without substance-use disorders. Those with substance-use disorders also reported anger dyscontrol at rates significantly higher than those inmates without substance-use disorders. Implications are drawn for including in substance-abuse treatment programs components that address the factors identified in this study. These data were obtained from the U.S. Department of Justice’s 2002 Survey of Inmates of Local Jails (SILJ). This was the first U.S. national survey to measure substance abuse and dependence in a correctional population based on clinical criteria of the DSM-IV-TR. The large sample size of the SILJ (n=6,982) allowed for comparison of sociological, social psychological, and clinical factors of inmates with and without substance-use disorders for inmates convicted of 4 major types of current index offenses. 4 tables and 58 references