Property Crime and Income Generation by Heroin Users
| DOI | 10.1375/acri.35.2.187 |
| Author | Lisa Maher,Wayne Hall,David Dixon,Michael Lynskey |
| Date | 01 August 2002 |
| Published date | 01 August 2002 |
187
THE AUSTRALIAN AND NEW ZEALAND JOURNAL OF CRIMINOLOGY
VOLUME 35 NUMBER 2 2002 PP.187–202
Address for correspondence: Lisa Maher, Ph.D., Senior Lecturer, School of Public Health
and Community Medicine, University of New South Wales, Sydney, NSW 2052, Australia.
Property Crime and Income Generation
by Heroin Users
Lisa Maher,David Dixon,Wayne Hall, and Michael Lynskey
University of New South Wales
This paper provides a detailed analysis of patterns of income genera-
tion among 202 active heroin users in South West Sydney. We
explore both sources of income and the relative contribution of different
types of income generating activities, including drug sales and related
activities, property crime, prostitution, legitimate income and avoided
expenditures. Despite claims that heroin use leads inevitably to property
crime, drug market activities accounted for a greater proportion of drug
user income in this sample. Results indicate that law enforcement crack-
downs that reduce opportunities for generating income from the drug
market may increase property crime by heroin users.
Acquisitive property crime has significant social and economic costs. A recent
estimate suggests that between two and three billion dollars worth of property is
stolen from homes, shops, cars, factories and warehouses in Australia each year
(Freiberg, 1997, p. 237). Very little of this property is recovered and a large amount
presumably finds its way onto the stolen property market in various ways (Allen,
2000). Four groups of offenders can be identified as major contributors to the
property crime market: burglars (Jochelson, 1995): large-scale shoplifters
(Shapland, 1995); workplace pilferers (Ditton, 1977; Henry, 1977); and heroin
users (Mott, 1992; Sutton, 1995). Little is known about the respective involvement
of each group or how the groups overlap and how this may vary over time.
Research in Europe, North America and Australia suggests that many depen-
dent heroin users are actively engaged in the theft and resale of stolen property
(Dobinson & Ward, 1985; Johnson et al., 1985; Mendes, 2000; Parker et al., 1988,
Hammersley et al., 1989, Dorn et al., 1994, Grapendaal et al., 1995). Similarly,
studies of property offenders indicate that many are heroin users who steal in order
to finance their habits. In an interview study of imprisoned burglars in New South
Wales, Stevenson and Forsythe (1999, p. 34) found that four-fifths of their subjects
spent some or all of the proceeds of their crimes on illicit drugs: two-thirds of adults
and one-quarter of juveniles were heroin users. Preliminary results from the Drug
Use Monitoring in Australia project indicate that 55% of suspects charged with
property offences tested positive to opiates (Makkai et al., 2000, p. 6).
In England and Wales, it has been estimated that, in the early 1990s, dependent
heroin users raised between 58 and 864 million pounds sterling per annum from
acquisitive property crime (Dorn et al., 1994). An Australian study reported that
heroin users raise at least $312 million per annum from property crime (Marks,
1992)1. However, this is a “very conservative” estimate (Marks, 1992, p. 29), based
on outdated or incomplete data (e.g., Dobinson & Ward, 1985; Dobinson &
Poletti, 1988), and an estimated population of only 30,000 regular and frequent
heroin users (Marks, 1990). During the 1990s, there was a significant increase in
heroin use (and heroin-related fatalities) in Australia (Hall et al., 1999). In
addition, it must be emphasised that Marks’s (1992) estimate only includes income
generated by users, not direct costs to victims or indirect costs to society. Illegality
upends market norms: the sale price (what the user receives for stolen goods) is less
than value (the replacement cost to the victim). Additional costs to society include
intangible costs such as fear of crime, costs associated with corruption, and defen-
sive costs against theft such as crime prevention measures and insurance.
While property crime by heroin users undoubtedly causes significant social
harm, the picture is more complex than the popular stereotype in which heroin use
inexorably leads to a life dominated by robbing and thieving in order to finance the
next hit. Some of the assumptions underlying estimates of the economic costs of
acquisitive crimes committed by heroin users have been shown to be problematic.
As Dorn and colleagues (1994) have pointed out, some calculations exaggerate the
financial requirements of heroin users by overestimating levels of heroin consump-
tion and under-estimating the number of heroin purchases funded by means other
than acquisitive crime. In particular, drug dealing and distribution (drug market)
activities have been shown to be an important source of income for heroin users
(Bretteville-Jensen & Sutton, 1996) although there are significant gender and
ethnic differences (see e.g., Maher, 1997; Maher & Daly, 1996; Anglin & Hser,
1987; Weatherburn et al., 1999).
Many heroin users also expend legitimate income in the form of wages and state
benefits on drug purchases (Grapendaal et al., 1995). In Australia, Marks (1992)
has estimated that social security payments for a population of 30,000 “regular and
frequent” heroin users cost approximately $190 million in 1988. An interview
survey involving 511 heroin users in central and south western Sydney report that
16% of participants recorded social security as their main source of income to buy
heroin (Weatherburn et al., 1999, pp. 21–2).
Others derive at least part of their incomes from activities such as prostitution
(Maher, 1997), gambling (Johnson et al., 1985) and pawning personal property
(Dobinson & Poletti, 1988; Maher et al., 1998; Weatherburn et al., 1999, p. 21). In
addition, many heroin users obtain a significant portion of their income in the form
of “in-kind” or avoided expenditures. In their study of heroin users in New York,
Johnson et al. (1985) found that up to 20% of the income of heroin users took the
form of avoided expenditures. These avoided expenditures represent non-cash or
in-kind forms of income and include accommodation, meals, clothing, alcohol and
other drugs, as well as a wide range of commodities or services not paid for which
are provided by family, friends, and social services.
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LISA MAHER, DAVID DIXON,WAYNE HALL,AND MICHAEL LYNSKEY
THE AUSTRALIAN AND NEW ZEALAND JOURNAL OF CRIMINOLOGY
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