Summary
This report examines the illegal drug using and criminal careers of participants in the Drug Use Careers of Offenders (DUCO) project. DUCO surveyed 2,135 adult male offenders who were incarcerated in prisons in Queensland, Western Australia, Tasmania, and the Northern Territory in mid 2001. The study focuses on the development of the criminal career, drawing comparisons among regular offenders of different offence typologies and comments on a variety of risk factors associated with offending. It explores the intersection of drug use and criminal behaviour and estimates that just over one third of all offenders causally attributed alcohol and/or illegal drugs to the offences for which they were incarcerated.
Contents
1. Overview of drugs and crime -- 2. Describing the offenders -- 3. Regular property offenders -- 4. Regular violent offenders -- 5. Regular multiple offenders -- 6. Regular fraud offenders -- 7. Regular drug sellers -- 8. Regular drug buyers -- 9. Homicide offenders -- 10. Non-regular offenders -- 11. Drug market activity -- 12. Risk factors.