Drugs And Violence Lecture

Drugs and violence- This is a very cursory discussion of course. Remember that correlation is not causation, that correlation only one of 5 necessary elements of causation. We will go over lots of correlative data, difficult to show true causation. Undoubtedly drugs and violence linked, but hard to...

Drugs and violence- This is a very cursory discussion of course. Remember that correlation is not causation, that correlation only one of 5 necessary elements of causation. We will go over lots of correlative data, difficult to show true causation. Undoubtedly drugs and violence linked, but hard to prove direct causal relationships well. But without a doubt, the drug most associated with violence is alcohol. Drunk people fight. Drunk people cause others to fight them. For years I've been saying that if the government were really afraid of a violent population, either for violent crime or a revolution, they would legalize the Marijuana. Now they are. In 75% of all homicide events, at least one actor is drunk, often both are. The British Medical Association reports that in England, alcohol is a factor in: 60-70% of homicides 75% of stabbings 70% of beatings 50% of fights and domestic assaults The Police Superintendents advised that alcohol is present in *[half of all crime]*. There used to be a great data source, I told you about it in the data lecture in the beginning of the semester, DUF, Drug Use Forecasting, that both surveyed and did urinalysis of folks at time of arrest in a bunch of cities across the US. It was renamed ADAM, Arrestee Drug Use Monitoring, and it reliably found that most folks who get arrested have illegal drugs in their systems at time of arrest. Not necessarily at the time they committed the crime, just when they were brought into the station and processed. And this does not include alcohol... Here are data for males and for which crime they were arrested for. It shows the percentage of those arrested who have illegal drugs in their systems... drug sales/possession 79% burglary 68 robbery 65 larceny 64 assault 48 traffic offense 42 sex offense 37  Drugs are abused a lot in this country (although your image of what drugs are most abused are incorrect: alcohol by far is the biggest abused drug and most associated with crime. The next tier are prescription drugs). There are three paths by which drugs cause crime that are cited in criminological research, but I'd like to add a fourth at the end. So the first three are the traditional pathways between drugs and crime, the fourth should be given greater consideration theoretically, I think. 1\. Pharmacological This means that the medicinal or physiological effects of drugs make the consumer aggressive. This can be mitigated by amount of the drug taken, think of the most common drug/violence interaction here, alcohol. A little doesn't too anything, moderate to a good deal might instigate violence responses, or it might not, as it isn't 100% there are lots of social factors, but a lot of booze can lead to no violence, as the consumer will pass out. Some drugs will lead to no violence, as they calm the consumer, like marijuana or tranquillizers. There is no documented evidence of anyone on PCP gaining superhuman strength, by the way. 2\. Economic compulsive Here, people have to commit crimes to get money for drugs. The majority of burglaries are for drug money, violent crimes not as high, but still exist, as most addicts don't want to risk getting caught and losing access to drugs, and are non-confrontational. However, if that is the only option to get drug money, it will be taken. Serious drug abusers are often unable to keep a job, so they don't have legitimate money to pay for their consumption, so they must engage in crime to get the funds to support their abuse. 3\. Market influences, This type of crime is a result of certain drugs being illegal, so an illegal market develops, which in turn leads to turf wars, retaliation, etc. When drug crimes were high, say in the late 1980\'s and early 90\'s, this was the reason for the increase in crime, not the other two (or the crime that resulted from organized gangsters that developed from Prohibition of alcohol in the 1920\'s). These drug markets are illegal. The competition between drug dealers is illegal, and is exacerbated by huge profit margins, and low impulse control actors. This inevitably leads to violent market competition. It's not the drug itself, crack for example, or alcohol, it's the illegal nature of it, supply and demand factors. This is one of the most compelling arguments for legalization, is that it will reduce the associated violent crime. Gangsters in Chicago don't shoot each other over booze anymore, just lots of other stuff! 4\. This one I am adding to the list: Sedative drugs and violence: the drug is used as a weapon to allow the completion of a crime. For example, a date rape drug. This is not a well recorded event, and the data about it are very limited. This is not usually how people think of drugs and violence, but it is a link. Of the 3 + 1 links, other than the last ones, alcohol is most associated with crime, and violence. Replace the word addict with alcoholic, and you get the same relationships for economic crimes, for example. Not that it has the strongest pharmacological effects necessarily, it might, but the real issue for all this is what? The overall amounts. Since alcohol is legal, and more importantly, socially acceptable (It is still illegal for under 21, but lots of violence by those under 21 is alcohol related, it's still socially acceptable for them to drink by say 16 or 17). Do you think that if cocaine were socially acceptable, it'd have high rates of violence, too? Probably not marijuana, though, it might cause economic compulsive crimes, or market, but not pharmacological. Not going to get into whole legalization of drugs debate. Drugs are illegal due to high social costs, it's symbolic, not necessarily rational one. Rationally, marijuana would be legal (and it will be legal in all 50 states before you all get old), alcohol illegal, but same with cigs, and fast food. Physiologically, alcohol is much more dangerous than heroin (except for the ease of overdosing poorly labelled and measured heroin, but the same would happen with street level booze too). Cigarettes, coffee and booze are just as dangerous as the weed (until you through in the inevitable fast food binges!). More alcohol data: The National Association of Probation Officers advised that 30% of offenders on probation and 58% of prisoners have severe alcohol problems and that alcohol is a factor in their offence or pattern of offending. Between 20 - 30% of violent offences and of disorderly behavior falling short of serious violence occurs in or near licensed premises. Almost half the incidents of disorderly behavior dealt with by the police occur shortly after pub closing times and are more likely to occur on Friday or Saturday nights. 9% of male prisoners and 4% of female prisoners are clinically diagnosed as alcohol dependent and perhaps half exceed the \'sensible limits\'. The British Crime Survey, a large-scale survey asking people about their experience of victimization, found that in 40% of all violent incidents the victim described the assailant as being under the influence of alcohol at the time of the assault. In relation to the different kinds or locations of violent offences, the proportions of assailants described as under the influence were: ----------------------- ----- Domestic Violence 44% Muggings 17% Stranger Violence 53% Acquaintance Violence 36% All violence 40% ----------------------- ----- Not only may alcohol consumption promote aggressiveness, but victimization may lead to excessive alcohol consumption. ***Extent of the Alcohol-Violence Association*** Summary of the percentages of violent offenders who were drinking at the time of the offense: up to 86 percent of homicide offenders, 37 percent of assault offenders, 60 percent of sexual offenders, up to 57 percent of men and 27 percent of women involved in marital violence, and 13 percent of child abusers. ***Alcohol Misuse Preceding Violence*** ***Direct Effects of Alcohol.*** Alcohol may encourage aggression or violence by disrupting normal brain function. According to the disinhibition hypothesis, for example, alcohol weakens brain mechanisms that normally restrain impulsive behaviors, including inappropriate aggression. By impairing information processing, alcohol can also lead a person to misjudge social cues, thereby overreacting to a perceived threat. ***Social and Cultural Expectancies***. Alcohol consumption may promote aggression because people expect it to. For example, research using real and mock alcoholic beverages shows that people who believe they have consumed alcohol begin to act more aggressively, regardless of which beverage they actually consumed. Alcohol-related expectancies that promote male aggressiveness, combined with the widespread perception of intoxicated women as sexually receptive and less able to defend themselves, could account for the association between drinking and date rape. In addition, a person who intends to engage in a violent act may drink to bolster his or her courage or in hopes of evading punishment or censure. The motive of drinking to avoid censure is encouraged by the popular view of intoxication as a \"time-out,\" during which one is not subject to the same rules of conduct as when sober. The National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism (NIAAA) 2002 report on college drinking estimates that more than 600,000 students are assaulted by drinking students on a yearly basis. In addition, many students use intoxication as an excuse for inappropriate and violent behavior. Several studies estimate that between 50 and 80 percent of violence on campus is alcohol-related. A national survey of more than 14,000 students found that 11 percent of students who do not drink heavily but live on campuses with high levels of drinking have been victims of assault. This rate is nearly double the number of victims of assault on campuses with lower levels of drinking. A study of college men in New England found that those who drink heavily are four times as likely as moderate drinkers to be involved in physical fights. But that can be the other way around, those who cause fights are more likely to drink. It is a chicken and egg thing, a self-selection bias.  **Possible Strategies for Reducing Drug Use** There are a variety of ways in which a government might try to reduce the use of illegal drugs. Roughly speaking, they can be categorized as ways of reducing the demand for illegal drugs, ways of reducing the import of illegal drugs, and ways of reducing the (domestic) production and distribution of illegal drugs. One way of reducing demand is by making substitutes, such as methadone for heroin addicts, more readily available. A more extreme version of that approach would be to legalize some drugs in order to reduce the demand for others. A different approach is to subsidize drug treatment centers; whether that works depends on whether drug users are actually helpless addicts who would quit if they only had a little help, or rational consumers choosing to use drugs because they like the effects they produce. Another way of reducing demand is by enforcing drug laws against users, spending law enforcement resources on identifying consumers of illegal drugs, prosecuting them, and punishing them. A weaker version of this approach is to make drug use more costly by encouraging drug testing by employers. What about discouraging the import of illegal drugs? This strategy might take a variety of forms, ranging from more careful customs inspection to waging war against producing nations, all of which involve activities either outside the U.S. or on the border. From the standpoint of effects inside the U.S., any such policy has roughly the same effect, it increases the cost of drugs to the distributers. The final alternative is one that appears to consume a large fraction of the domestic law enforcement resources devoted to the war on drugs in the U.S., actions against domestic production and distribution. Here it is useful to distinguish between actions against small scale domestic producers, including those producing for their own use, and attempts to identify, arrest and prosecute people in the business of mass producing and/or distributing illegal drugs.