Opiate use in Ireland — Methodological issues
| Published date | 01 September 2007 |
| Author | Jean Long,Desmond Corrigan Chairperson |
| DOI | 10.1177/0264550507080378 |
| Date | 01 September 2007 |
| Subject Matter | Articles |
Letters
The Journal of Community and Criminal Justice
Copyright © 2007 NAPO Vol 54(3): 307–310
DOI: 10.1177/0264550507080378
www.napo.org.uk
http://prb.sagepub.com
Opiate use in Ireland – Methodological issues
Dear Editor,
Comiskey and colleagues used a multiplier method to estimate the prevalence of
opiate use in Ireland (‘Estimating the prevalence of opiate use in Ireland and the
implications for the criminal justice system’, Probation Journal 54(1): 22–35). The
authors describe how they established a benchmark figure based on national
crime statistics for 2003 and 2004, and generated a multiplier from baseline data
collected for the Research Outcomes Study in Ireland (ROSIE). We take issue with
both the essential elements – the benchmark and the multiplier – of the method
used by the authors.
The authors present a benchmark figure of ‘approximately 500 individuals’,
described as the average number of arrests in a three-month period for the
possession of drugs for sale or supply, and derived, they say, from Tables 4 and
5 of their paper. This benchmark figure is flawed for a number of reasons:
● From Tables 4 and 5, we calculate a figure of either 523.5 or 557.9 –
considerably greater than that arrived at by the authors.
● The numbers presented in Table 4, extracted from the police report for
2003,1 represent the number of offences detected for possession of any
drugs for sale or supply, rather than the number of opiate users, or of
individuals, arrested. By using the words ‘opiate user’ and ‘drug user’
interchangeably, the authors appear to assume that all drug users arrested
for the possession of drugs for sale or supply are opiate users.
● The authors do not control for repeat offences by the same individual.
They take as their multiplier the percentage (3.5%) of the 404 participants in the
baseline ROSIE study who reported that they had been arrested for the possession
of drugs for sale or supply in the 90 days prior to the interview. There are...
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