Disaggregating the Relationship Between Drug Misuse and Crime

Abstract

Studies on the association between drug-misuse and criminal behaviour have tended to be based on either aggregated data (composite forms of drug-misuse or offending) or data on just one or two types of drug-misuse or crime. Such studies can obscure variations in the nature of the relationship between particular drug types and particular offences. The current study uses disaggregated data derived from the NEW-ADAM (New English and Welsh Arrestee Drug Abuse Monitoring) program to investigate both connections and nonconnections between drug-misuse and crime. The results show some variations in the relationship depending on the particular combinations of type of drug-misuse and type of crime. The paper concludes that the use of disaggregated data can help identify both consistencies and variations in the relationship and might help to understand its complexities and inform government policy.