Drug-Crime Connections

The book presents up-to-date research that explores the various connections between drug misuse and crime.

Trevor Bennett (Author), Katy Holloway (Author)

9780521867573, Cambridge University Press

Hardback, published 1 October 2007

362 pages, 84 tables
23.5 x 15.5 x 2.3 cm, 0.634 kg

“Trevor Bennett and Katy Holloway have made a major contribution to our understanding of the complex relationship between drugs and crime—one of the most important and perplexing issues to confront criminology in recent decades. Drug-Crime Connections is more than a ‘must read’; it belongs on the book shelves of drugs researchers and policymakers worldwide who will consult it frequently for its balanced and measured assessment of the evidence.” -Richard Wright, Curators’ Professor of Criminology and Criminal Justice, University of Missouri-St. Louis

Drug-Crime Connections challenges the assumption that there is a widespread association between drug use and crime. Instead, it argues that there are many highly specific connections. The authors draw together in a single volume a wide range of findings from a study of nearly 5,000 arrestees interviewed as part of the New English and Welsh Arrestee Drug Abuse Monitoring (NEW-ADAM) programme. It provides an in-depth study of the nature of drug-crime connections, as well as an investigation into drug use generally among criminals and the kinds of crimes that they commit. They explore topics that previously have fallen outside the drug-crime debate, such as gender and drugs, ethnicity and drugs, gangs, guns, drug markets, and treatment needs. The book provides both an up-to-date review of the literature and a concise summary of a major study on the connection between drug use and crime.

Part I. Introduction: 1. Background
2. Research methods
Part II. Drug Misuse among Criminals: 3. Drug misuse among arrestees
4. Drugs and health
Part III. Drug-Crime Affinities: 5. Drugs and crime
6. Disaggregating the drugs-crime relationship
7. Multiple drug use and crime
8. Users' perceptions of the drugs-crime link
Part IV. Special Topics: 9. Gender, drugs, and crime
10. Ethnicity, drugs, and crime
11. Gangs and gang members
12. Gun possession and use
13. Drug markets
14. Assisted desistance and treatment needs
15. International comparisons
Part V. Conclusions: 16. Conclusions.

Subject Areas: Crime & criminology [JKV], Social services & welfare, criminology [JK], Drug & substance abuse: social aspects [JFFH1]