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With reference to both legal and illegal drugs, critically assess the casual relationship between drugs and crime? With reference to both legal and illegal drugs,
Submitted by juss2fab on April 14, 2008
Category: Social Issues
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With reference to both legal and illegal drugs, critically assess the casual relationship between drugs and crime?
The role of drugs in crime causation is a regular feature in public and political debate and plays a considerable role in UK drugs policy. There are numerous questions to be asked when considering the drugs-crime link, the first and perhaps most puzzling question is, do drugs cause crime or does criminality come first? However, it can be argued that the existence of illicit drugs and crime simultaneously is just a quirk, a fluke, purely coincidental and there is no correlation (or only a statistical link) between the two and if there is, common sense reasoning can be applied. Research on this statistical association uses three methods of investigation. The first is referred to as ‘national and regional trends’ and follows relationships between ‘broad movements in drug use’ and broad movements in crime. The studies of ‘drug-using criminals’ examine drug use among samples of criminals. The third method, ‘criminal drug-users’, explores criminal behaviour among addicts and other drugs users (Hayles, 2000:78)
Although ‘there is a widespread belief that addiction to illegal drugs is the cause of a significant proportion of acquisitive crime’ (Seddon, 2000), ‘causal connections are difficult to determine’ (Bond and Sheridan, 2007).
Not all drug use is illegal, the role of alcohol as a factor implicated in criminal behaviour has long been a topic of research interest. This accumulation of evidence supports the notion that alcohol plays a role in the commissioning of offences, however, there are several possible types of relationships (Collins, 1982; Roberts et al, 1999 cited in McMurran, 2003:2). According to McMurran (2003:2), alcohol may cause crime directly (e.g., disinhibition; cognitive impairment); alcohol and crime may be linked through a shared third factor (e.g., personality; social...
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