NCJ Number
114821
Date Published
1986
Length
4 pages
Annotation
One of the major problems in assessing law enforcement initiatives such as the Australian National Campaign Against Drug Abuse is the lack of reliable statistics and their potential for biased and unscientific use or abuse.
Abstract
While police statistics show dramatic increases in the number of drug offenses between 1971 and 1985, such statistics are largely a measure of police activity, may bear no direct relation to changes in the magnitude of drug use, and do not necessarily reflect changes in population size over time. Further, the increase in recorded drug offenses involved primarily arrests for drug possession or use rather than supply. It is unlikely that this pattern of law enforcement will have a significant effect on levels of drug use. Given the difficulty in detecting heroin or cocaine use relative to cannabis use, recorded offenses represent only a very small proportion of actual use. While statistics on drug seizures are used as indicators of drug availability, such statistics also are difficult to interpret, reflect law enforcement activity as well as changes in availability, and may be inflated by one or more very large seizures. Such data lack comprehensiveness in terms of time and sources and often are only partially quoted. Similarly, statistics on deaths related to illegal drug use are indirect and difficult to interpret and do not provide information on the actual extent of the drug problem. Statistics on drug law enforcement in Australia are inadequate and incomplete and cannot be used as direct indicators of the size of the drug problem or to evaluate law enforcement strategies to control it. 3 tables and 2 figures.