6 - Disaggregating the Drug-Crime Relationship

Summary

INTRODUCTION

Disaggregating the drug-crime relationship refers to breaking down the association between drug use and crime by various types of drug use and various types of crime. A number of reasons might make it useful to disaggregate findings. One is that it can reveal variations in the drug-crime relation that might be obscured when looking at aggregated categories. It is possible, for example, that certain kinds of drugs might be associated with certain kinds of crimes. Another reason is that drug policy needs to be efficient as well as effective. It might be the case that a blanket policy covering all drug types or all crime types might be unnecessary and wasteful. Instead, a more focused approach on specific drug-crime combinations might be more cost effective.

The idea that there might be variations in the drug-crime relationship depending on the type of drugs and type of crimes being considered has been suggested before in the research literature. It has been argued that drugs vary substantially in terms of their pharmacological properties, their addictive qualities, and their costs. It is unlikely, therefore, that their impact on criminal behavior would be identical (Farabee et al., 2001). Parker and Auerhahn (1998) make a similar point in relation to the study of drugs and violence and note the tendency of research to “lump all illicit drugs together, as if all drugs might be expected to have the same relationship to violent behavior” (p. 293).