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Drugs and Young People

Drugs and Young People. Understanding Criminology 3 rd March 2009. Lecture Outline. Researching Prevalence and Trends Influences, Explanations and Debates Drugs-Crime Links Responses and Interventions. Researching Drug Usage (1). Police Reports

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Drugs and Young People

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  1. Drugs and Young People Understanding Criminology 3rd March 2009

  2. Lecture Outline • Researching • Prevalence and Trends • Influences, Explanations and Debates • Drugs-Crime Links • Responses and Interventions

  3. Researching Drug Usage (1) • Police Reports • Heavily dependent on policing / customs investigation and recording practice • Increase in warning for cannabis use • Drug-Testing of Offenders • Atypical

  4. Researching Drug Usage (2) • Self-report declarations • Accuracy • Honesty • Willingness to declare

  5. Young People’s Self-declared useJ Hoare and J Flatley (2008) Drug Misuse Declared: Findings from the 2007/08 BCS

  6. Gender and Ethnicity:Use of any drug: Ever, Last year, Last month

  7. Lifestyle Correlates

  8. Drugs "Stickiness": %age of "Ever Used" who have used in past month

  9. Global Drugs Trade • Hugely profitably criminal activity: annual turnover est. at £7-8 billion • Huge prince inflation from production to street price • Heroin: 168 fold - Cocaine:159 fold • Evidence of ‘specialism’ of heroin and cocaine traders

  10. Influences, Explanations and Debates • Why do people take drugs? • Addiction • Mainstream and medical • Quite specific medical meaning: a much more loosely defined social use • Underplays choice, context and the vast majority of drug use • Peer Pressure • More social • Peer subcultures can offer support for drug use; status; values supportive of drug-use • Underplays choice: many teen experimenters are strong individualists • Pharmopsycholgical effects (pleasure!) • Links between choice of drug and particular social trends? • Consumer Culture • Links to an increasingly diverse consumer culture

  11. Influences, Explanations and Debates • Problematic Drug Use • Typical? • Addiction • Purity • Social context, rather than drug use • Gateway Theories • Experience of some drugs leading on to others • Some analytical problems • Reasons? • Psychological; social; empirical?

  12. The Normalisation ThesisSee Howard Parker et al (1998) Illegal Leisure • A growth in the use of drugs by young people • Deviant acts -> mainstream leisure • A weakening of the correlations between drug use and gender, ethnicity, social class • A central part of youth culture • The policing of drugs requires the identification of ‘problem’ drug users

  13. Counter Arguments • Ignores impacts of drug use • Research approach: ‘naturalism’ • Counter evidence • Short-term fluctuations • Drug use esp. adolescent use now in decline • Failure to adequately consider different types of drug use • Experimentation v. problematic use, and relation between them • Dominance of certain drugs (cannabis, ecstasy) • A conflation of cultural prevalence and use • An exaggeration of cultural change

  14. Drug-Crime Links • Correlation is not causation! • There is strong evidence that those who commit (other) crime also use drugs • Self-report studies • Possible ‘willingness to admit’ bias? • Police and Prison Testing • Skewed samples • Causal Direction • Crime -> Drugs OR • Drugs -> Crime Trevor Bennet and Katy Holloway (2004) ‘Drug use and offending: summary results of the first two years of the NEW-ADAM programme’ Home Office,

  15. Plausible Drug-crime Links • Drug Use -> crime • Crime -> Drug use • 3rd Factor causes both • Drug Use makes you a worse criminal: easy to catch

  16. The Drugs / Acquisitive Crime Link(Hough, M et al (2001) Drugs and Crime: What are the Links?, Drugscope) • Economic Necessity (Drug Use  Crime) • Facilitating Crime (Crime  Drug Use) • Crime provides the money, contacts for drug use, or a lifestyle that produces a need for drugs • A complex combination of the above two • Both Drug Use and Crime are caused by a common factor e.g. social exclusion Not incompatible with each other All drug use or problematic drug use?

  17. The Drugs / Violence Link • Paul Goldstein, (1985) • Psycho-pharmacological Model: drugs make people more violent • Economic Compulsion: acquisitive violent crime to feed habit • Violent and Drugs Subculture overlap

  18. Arguments for Legalisation / Decriminalisation • Economic • Enforcement of drugs laws is immensely costly, and unsuccessful • Legalisation would provide a source of taxation • Social • drug laws are counter-productive: do not decrease drug use, and increases social exclusion • Harm reduction • Legalisation would allow regulation of trade, purity etc. • Imprisonment is a highly inappropriate response • Criminological • Legalisation would cut the drugs / crime link • Organised crime would be deprived of its major source of funds

  19. ? Jan 2009 Drugs (Re-)Classification • Harm? Criminal Justice Response? Prevention? • Political Expediency?

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