Disaggregating the Relationship Between Drug Misuse and Crime
| Author | Katy Holloway,Trevor Bennett |
| DOI | 10.1375/acri.38.1.102 |
| Published date | 01 April 2005 |
| Date | 01 April 2005 |
102 THE AUSTRALIAN AND NEW ZEALAND JOURNAL OF CRIMINOLOGY
VOLUME 38 NUMBER 1 2005 PP.102–121
Address for correspondence: Professor Trevor Bennett, Director, Centre for Criminology,
University of Glamorgan, Mid Glamorgan, CF37 1DL, United Kingdom. E-mail:
thbennet@glam.ac.uk
Disaggregating the Relationship
Between Drug Misuse and Crime
Trevor Bennett and Katy Holloway
University of Glamorgan, United Kingdom
Studies on the association between drug-misuse and criminal behaviour
have tended to be based on either aggregated data (composite forms
of drug-misuse or offending) or data on just one or two types of drug-
misuse or crime. Such studies can obscure variations in the nature of the
relationship between particular drug types and particular offences. The
current study uses disaggregated data derived from the NEW-ADAM
(New English and Welsh Arrestee Drug Abuse Monitoring) program to
investigate both connections and nonconnections between drug-misuse
and crime. The results show some variations in the relationship depend-
ing on the particular combinations of type of drug-misuse and type of
crime. The paper concludes that the use of disaggregated data can help
identify both consistencies and variations in the relationship and might
help to understand its complexities and inform government policy.
Research on the association between drug-misuse and criminal behaviour tends
to be polarised between studies that use fairly general measures (such as ‘arrest
rate’ or ‘number of convictions’; e.g., Boudouris, 1976; Gossop & Roy, 1977) and
studies that use highly specific measures (such as ‘heroin addiction’ or ‘crack-
cocaine use’; e.g., Parker & Newcombe, 1987; Inciardi & Pottieger, 1994). There is
some division in the literature about which type of study is the more prevalent.
French et al. (2000), on the one hand, note the preponderance of generalist studies
in their recent observation that ‘… the majority of studies in the criminological
literature have examined relationships between any substance use and the probabil-
ity of being arrested or committing a criminal act’ (p. 96). South (1994), on the
other hand, notes a few years earlier the tendency towards specialism when he
writes, ‘The majority of criminological studies since the 1960s have focused on
heroin …’ (p. 412). The main point that both commentators make is that studies
on the drugs–crime connection have tended to focus on either just one specific or a
few general types of drug-misuse and crime.
Generalist and specialist studies such as these have provided a valuable service
and have generated the base of current knowledge on the drugs–crime relationship.
However, they each have their limitations. Nurco et al. (1985) argue that there is a
danger that generalist studies can lead to the conclusion that substance misusers (or
offenders) are a homogeneous group. Against the highly specialist studies, a similar
argument could be mounted that they encourage the view that the results relating
to specific forms of drug-misuse (especially the heavy focus on heroin) and criminal
behaviour can be extrapolated to other forms. In both cases, the research implicitly
suggests a simple connection (in the case of specialist studies) or a universal
connection (in the case of generalist studies) between drug-misuse and crime.
However, there is mounting evidence to show that the relationship is neither simple
nor universal.
Gandossy et al. (1980) reported in one of the earliest reviews of the literature
that there was no simple relationship between drug-misuse and crime. Chaiken and
Chaiken (1990), in a review conducted 10 years later, noted that, when behaviours
of large groups of people are studied in aggregate, no coherent general pattern exists
associating drug-misuse and predatory crime. They make the obvious (but often
overlooked) point that there are many severely addicted people who commit no
crimes and there are many prolific offenders who are not involved in drug-misuse.
They go on to ask, ‘Where, then, lies the strong relationship between drug-misuse
and criminality?’ (1990, p. 212). More recent reviews of the drugs–crime literature
tend towards the same conclusion. Hough (1996) notes that the extent to which
drug-misuse and criminal behaviour are connected and the precise nature of the
relationship has yet to be established.
There are a number of reasons mentioned in the literature why the relationship
between drug-misuse and crime might not be straightforward. Drugs vary substan-
tially in terms of their pharmacological properties, their addictive qualities, and
their costs (Farabee et al., 2001). Hence, it is unlikely that their impact on criminal
behaviour would be identical. Parker and Auerhahn (1998) argue this point in
relation to violence when they note a common tendency among studies to ‘… lump
all illicit drugs together, as if all drugs might be expected to have the same relation-
ship to violent behaviour’ (p. 293). Instead, they argue that different drugs have
different pharmacological effects, which influence whether or not the user has a
tendency toward violent behaviour. Similarly, criminal behaviour varies substan-
tially in its nature and motivation. Some forms of criminal behaviour have clear
theoretical links with drug-misuse (e.g., certain kinds of acquisitive crime) and
others have fewer plausible connections (e.g., certain kinds of expressive crime).
The above discussion shows a mismatch in the literature between empirical
research, which has tended to focus on general aspects of the relationship between
drug-misuse and crime, and academic discussion, which has tended to focus on
specific aspects that might exist between different types of drug-misuse and different
types of crime. In order for research to progress in this area, more needs to be known
about both consistencies and variations in the drugs–crime connection. There is a
growing consensus that the investigation of the drugs–crime connection might be
furthered by studying disaggregated forms of drug-misuse and crime (Farabee et al.,
2001; Best et al., 2001). In practice, this means looking at different types of associa-
tion between subcategories of drug-misuse and subcategories of crime.
One of the aims of the current article is to investigate the relationship between
drug-misuse and crime using disaggregated measures. In particular, it aims to deter-
mine whether there are variations in the nature of the connection between certain
103
DISAGGREGATING THE RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN DRUG MISUSE AND CRIME
THE AUSTRALIAN AND NEW ZEALAND JOURNAL OF CRIMINOLOGY
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