drugs and young people
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Drugs and Young People. Understanding Criminology 3 rd March 2009. Lecture Outline. Researching Prevalence and Trends Influences, Explanations and Debates Drugs-Crime Links Responses and Interventions. Researching Drug Usage (1). Police Reports - PowerPoint PPT PresentationTRANSCRIPT
Drugs and Young PeopleUnderstanding Criminology
3rd March 2009
Lecture Outline
• Researching • Prevalence and Trends• Influences, Explanations and Debates• Drugs-Crime Links • Responses and Interventions
Researching Drug Usage (1)
• Police Reports– Heavily dependent on
policing / customs investigation and recording practice
– Increase in warning for cannabis use
• Drug-Testing of Offenders– Atypical
Change in Drugs Offences 2006/07 -> 2007/08
Police Data +18%BCS Self-report (16-24 year olds)
-3.3%
Reults of Police "On Charge" Drug TestingPilot projects in 9 areas 2001-2003
Opiates, 24
Cocaine, 12
Opiates and Cocaine, 18
Negative, 47
Researching Drug Usage (2)
• Self-report declarations– Accuracy– Honesty– Willingness to
declare
Young People’s Self-declared useJ Hoare and J Flatley (2008) Drug Misuse Declared: Findings from the 2007/08 BCS
Changing Use? 1998 -2007/8(last year usage)
Increase Decrease Stable
Cocaine Any DrugHallucinogensOpiatesCannabisFrequent Use
Any Class ACrackEcstasyHeroin
Gender and Ethnicity:Use of any drug: Ever, Last year, Last month
Lifestyle CorrelatesBehaviour Effect
Any Drug
Cannabis Ecstasy
Visiting Nightclub 4+ times a month (v. never)
X 2 X 2 X 3.5
Going to Pub 9 + times a month (v. never)
X 4 X 3.9 x 6.7
Drank alcohol 3+ times a week (v. never in year)
x8 X8.4 X 13.7
Drugs "Stickiness": %age of "Ever Used" who have used in past month
Source: BCS 2007/08 Self- Reports 16-24
0
5
10
15
20
25
30
Anabo
lic st
eroids
Magic
mushro
oms
Glues
Halluc
inoge
ns LSD
Opiates
Heroin
Tranqu
illiser
s
Ampheta
mines
Ketamine
Amyl Nitri
te
Ecstas
y
Methad
one
Crack
coca
ine
Cocain
e pow
der
Any co
caine
Canna
bis
Global Drugs Trade• Hugely profitably criminal activity: annual turnover est. at £7-8 billion
• Huge prince inflation from production to street price
•Heroin: 168 fold - Cocaine:159 fold
• Evidence of ‘specialism’ of heroin and cocaine traders
Influences, Explanations and Debates
• Why do people take drugs?– Addiction
• Mainstream and medical• Quite specific medical meaning: a much more loosely
defined social use• Underplays choice, context and the vast majority of drug use
– Peer Pressure• More social• Peer subcultures can offer support for drug use; status;
values supportive of drug-use• Underplays choice: many teen experimenters are strong
individualists – Pharmopsycholgical effects (pleasure!)
• Links between choice of drug and particular social trends?– Consumer Culture
• Links to an increasingly diverse consumer culture
• Problematic Drug Use– Typical?– Addiction– Purity– Social context, rather than drug use
• Gateway Theories– Experience of some drugs leading on to others– Some analytical problems – Reasons?
• Psychological; social; empirical?
Influences, Explanations and Debates
The Normalisation ThesisSee Howard Parker et al (1998) Illegal Leisure
• A growth in the use of drugs by young people• Deviant acts -> mainstream leisure• A weakening of the correlations between drug
use and gender, ethnicity, social class• A central part of youth culture• The policing of drugs requires the
identification of ‘problem’ drug users
Counter Arguments• Ignores impacts of drug use• Research approach: ‘naturalism’• Counter evidence• Short-term fluctuations
– Drug use esp. adolescent use now in decline• Failure to adequately consider different types of drug use
– Experimentation v. problematic use, and relation between them– Dominance of certain drugs (cannabis, ecstasy)
• A conflation of cultural prevalence and use• An exaggeration of cultural change
Drug-Crime Links• Correlation is not
causation!– There is strong evidence
that those who commit (other) crime also use drugs
• Self-report studies – Possible ‘willingness to
admit’ bias?• Police and Prison Testing
– Skewed samples
– Causal Direction• Crime -> Drugs OR• Drugs -> Crime
Trevor Bennet and Katy Holloway (2004) ‘Drug use and offending: summary results of the first two years of the NEW-ADAM programme’ Home Office,
Plausible Drug-crime Links
• Drug Use -> crime• Crime -> Drug use• 3rd Factor causes both• Drug Use makes you a worse criminal: easy to
catch
The Drugs / Acquisitive Crime Link(Hough, M et al (2001) Drugs and Crime: What are the Links?, Drugscope)
• Economic Necessity (Drug Use Crime)• Facilitating Crime (Crime Drug Use)
– Crime provides the money, contacts for drug use, or a lifestyle that produces a need for drugs
• A complex combination of the above two• Both Drug Use and Crime are caused by a
common factor e.g. social exclusionNot incompatible with each otherAll drug use or problematic drug use?
The Drugs / Violence Link
• Paul Goldstein, (1985)• Psycho-pharmacological Model: drugs make
people more violent• Economic Compulsion: acquisitive violent
crime to feed habit• Violent and Drugs Subculture overlap
Arguments for Legalisation / Decriminalisation
• Economic– Enforcement of drugs laws is immensely costly, and unsuccessful– Legalisation would provide a source of taxation
• Social– drug laws are counter-productive: do not decrease drug use, and
increases social exclusion• Harm reduction
– Legalisation would allow regulation of trade, purity etc.– Imprisonment is a highly inappropriate response
• Criminological– Legalisation would cut the drugs / crime link– Organised crime would be deprived of its major source of funds
Drugs (Re-)Classification
?
Jan 2009
•Harm? Criminal Justice Response? Prevention?
•Political Expediency?