Criminal thinking and self-control among drug users in court mandated treatment
| Author | David Best,Greg Packer,Ed Day,Kelly Wood |
| Published date | 01 February 2009 |
| Date | 01 February 2009 |
| DOI | http://doi.org/10.1177/1748895808099182 |
| Subject Matter | Articles |
93
Criminal thinking and self-control among
drug users in court mandated treatment
GREG PACKER, DAVID BEST, ED DAY AND KELLY WOOD
University of Birmingham and Solihull Mental Health Foundation
Trust, UK
Abstract
This article aims to explore the relationship between self-control and
criminal thinking in a population of drug using offenders attending
a court mandated treatment programme, and how this relates to
recent offending and substance use. Fifty drug using offenders
attending a Birmingham Drug Intervention Programme clinic under
the terms of a Drug Rehabilitation Requirement (DRR) completed
standardized measures of self-control and criminal thinking.
Associations were found between both self-control and criminal
thinking and drug use and offending. A strong association was
found between low self-control and high criminal thinking. Lower
levels of self-control were associated with younger age, and there
was some evidence of a link between younger age and higher
criminal thinking. The links between drug use and crime are more
complex than could be explained by either the self-control model of
crime or criminal thinking alone, although the current findings
suggest a mediating role for age and indications that drugs–crime
linkage is mediated by patterns of substance use and offending.
Key Words
coerced treatment • drugs–crime linkage • offending patterns • self-
control • thinking styles
Criminology & Criminal Justice
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ISSN 1748–8958; Vol: 9(1): 93–110
DOI: 10.1177/1748895808099182
Background
The strong links between drug use and crime, particularly acquisitive crime,
have been previously demonstrated in several UK (Hammersley et al., 1989;
Parker and Kirby, 1996; Coid et al., 2000; Gossop et al., 2000) and inter-
national studies (Nurco, 1993; van der Zanden et al., 2007). Increased con-
tact with other drug users also appears to be a risk factor for increased
criminal involvement (Best et al., 2007).
Bennett and Holloway (2005) have outlined the primary models used to
explain the linkage ranging from ‘drugs cause crime’; ‘crime causes drug use’;
the reciprocal model and the ‘common cause’ model, with the ‘drugs cause
crime’ model the most compatible with a ‘medical model’ view of addiction.
This can take the form of either a psychopharmacological model (where there
is assumed to be a direct link between drug effects and criminal behaviour)
or the ‘economic necessity’ model (Goldstein, 1985), although as Bennett and
Holloway caution, this will depend on which drug, which crime, how meas-
ured and in what context the offending is believed to occur.
However, the nature of the drugs–crime link has also been conceptualized
in developmental terms with the concept of ‘careers’ increasingly prominent in
writings on both offending (Laub and Sampson, 2003) and addictions (Hser
et al., 2007). Indeed, Thornberry (2005: 156) has argued that ‘the advent of
developmental life-course theories of delinquency is perhaps the most impor-
tant advance in theoretical criminology during the latter part of the twentieth
century’. While this has been traditionally characterized in terms of ‘which
comes first’ in drugs and crime, an alternative approach is to consider the
impact on long-term addiction and crime careers. Farrington’s (1979) conclu-
sion that substance use significantly impairs adolescents’ ability to mature out
of delinquency and reintegrate into mainstream society, has been supported by
Welte et al. (2005). In the Buffalo Longitudinal Study of Young Men, Welte
et al. concluded not only that drug use prevents a speedy maturing out of
crime careers, the extent of substance dependence and the negative conse-
quences experienced will determine the ‘peak level’ of the delinquency career.
In the addictions field, much of the rationale for the ‘drugs cause crime’
model derives from longitudinal drug treatment outcome studies. Thus, the
UK National Treatment Outcome Research Study (NTORS) has shown that
treatment is associated with reductions in drug use in a community setting,
but also with significant reductions in offending despite criminal behaviour
not being specifically targeted in most of the participating services (Gossop
et al., 2000, 2005). The effect appears particularly marked among drug
users with a high level of pre-entry criminal activity. The NTORS study
concluded that the economic benefits of reduction in crime alone far out-
weigh the costs incurred in running the treatment programmes (Godfrey
et al., 2004). However, it is notable in the NTORS cohort that the major-
ity of the crime reduction was reported in a sub-sample of around 10 per
cent of those followed up, with a further 50 per cent reporting no crime in
the period prior to treatment entry.
Criminology & Criminal Justice 9(1)94
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