Drug Use, Intoxication and Offence Type in Two Groups of Alleged Offenders in Perth: A Pilot Study
| Author | Wendy Loxley |
| DOI | 10.1177/000486580103400106 |
| Published date | 01 April 2001 |
| Date | 01 April 2001 |
Drug
Use, Intoxication
and
Offence Type
in
Two Groups
of
Alleged Offenders
in
Perth: APilot Study
Wendy
Loxley
Curtin
University
of
Technology,
Perth
The study consisted
of
two
cross-sectional surveys,
conducted
with a)
community
based
juveniles
and
adults
under
suspicion
of
having
committed
an offence (n =90)
and
b) adults
remanded
in
custody
in
Perth prisons (n =76).
The
focus of this
paper
is on describing
the
drug
use
and
criminal histories
of
respondents
as a
context
for
examining
their
use
of
drugs
in
the
period
immediately
preceding
an
alleged
offence, and
the
relationships
between
drug use preceding
the
offence,
and offence type.
There
were
high
rates
of
use
of
most
drug
classes
in
both
study
groups and
most
respondents
could be characterised as polydrug users.
Community
respondents
reported
that
they
had an average
of
14 convic-
tions and remand
respondents
an average
of
33.5 convictions. In
both
study groups
the
majority
of
reported
offences
were
breaking and
enter-
ing
or
burglary.Almost all
respondents
reported
that
they
had
been
using
at
least
one
drug
in
the
48
hours
before
the
most
recent
alleged
offence(s)
took
place.
Between
half
and
two
thirds
considered
themselves
to
have
been
intoxicated before
the
offence(s), and
almost
one
in
three
stated
that
they
had
been
in withdrawal in
the
6
hours
before
the
alleged offence(s).
The
relationship
between
use of specific
drug
classes, intoxication
and
withdrawal in
the
six
hours
before
the
most
recent
alleged
offence
and
the
nature
of
those
offences
was
assessed with bivariate analyses. It was found
that
the
majority of such
relationships
were
between
heroin and
property
offences.
The
results
are
discussed in
terms
of
the
representativeness of
the
study groups, and
the
need
for
replication
with
larger
and
more
representative
samples
is
emphasised.
The study described in this report was undertaken by researchers at the National
Drug Research Institute (NORI) in collaboration with the Western Australian
Police Service (WAPS) to explore
the
links between use of specific drugs and
Address for correspondence: Wendy Loxley PhD, Deputy Director, National Drug Research
Institute,
GPO
Box U1987, PerthWA 6845, Australia.
THE AUSTRALIAN
AND
NEW
ZEALAND
JOURNAL OF CRIMINOLOGY
VOLUME
34
NUMBER·
1200 1
PP.
91-104
91
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