Alcohol, drugs and crime : a study of juveniles in detention

Jeremy Prichard and Jason Payne
ISBN 0 642 53891 3 ; ISSN 1326-6004
Canberra: Australian Institute of Criminology: 2005
(Research and public policy series, no. 67)

Chapter 2: Juveniles, drugs and crime

• Patterns of initiation with alcohol and drugs
• The drugs-crime link
• Crime attributed to drugs
• Summary

Juvenile crime is a troubling phenomenon internationally (Wei et al. 2004). Although the crimes they commit are less serious than those committed by adults, they are overrepresented in crime data, with the rate of juvenile offending twice as high (AIC 2003). The bulk of recorded juvenile crime is perpetrated by male youths (Junger-Tas et al. 2004). Rates of property crime appear to peak at 16 to 17 years of age, and violent crimes at 18 to 19 (AIC 2003; Hirschi & Gottfredson 1983).

Juvenile crime is considered less complex than adult crime in many respects. Typically, youths who commit crimes do so with little forethought; spontaneity and risk-taking are characteristics of juvenile crime (Weiner & Wolfgang 1989). This is arguably reflected in the fact that, although juveniles are overrepresented in property crime statistics generally, a fraction of recorded fraud offences are perpetrated by youths (AIC 2003). It has been argued that one reason official juvenile crime rates are high is that youths are easier for police to apprehend and successfully prosecute than adults (Wundersitz 1996).

The research into juvenile criminal careers is mixed. Some studies indicate that most young offenders desist from criminal activity as they enter adulthood (Farrington 1998; McLaren 2000). This is supported by Australian findings that most youths who appear in court do not reappear on subsequent charges (Carcach & Leverett 1999). Coumarelos's (1994) analysis of juvenile court appearances from 1982 to 1986 in New South Wales indicated that 70 per cent of youths appeared before the courts once and 15 per cent appeared a second time. More recently however, research has found that if followed long enough (into adulthood), approximately 70 per cent of those appearing as a juvenile, reappear for additional criminal charges (Chen, Matruglio, Weatherburn and Hua 2005).

The recidivism literature indicates that a small percentage of juveniles are serious recidivists who account for a large proportion of overall youth crime figures. The Coumarelos (1994) study indicated that less than four per cent of young people (those who appeared in court on six or more occasions) accounted for 20 per cent of all court appearances. The risk for these young people is that they will persist with criminality into adulthood, committing crimes of increasing seriousness (Howell & Hawkins 1998). Half of those aged 18 to 20 in the DUCO adult male study reported having served a period of detention as a juvenile. Across the entire sample, one in three had been in detention as an adolescent (Makkai & Payne 2003).

There has been a national decline in the rates of juvenile detention since the early 1980s (Charlton & McCall 2004). Females constitute about 10 per cent of juvenile detainees. Rates of detention of Indigenous youth have also declined. However, Indigenous youth are grossly overrepresented in Australian detention centres. In 2002, about 47 per cent of detained youths were Indigenous people. Proportionate to the population, this means that Indigenous youth are 19 times more likely to be sentenced to detention.

Theories of crime have highlighted the influence of informal social factors that affect juvenile antisocial behaviour, including families, schools, peer groups and neighbourhoods (Hirschi 1969; Sampson & Laub 1990). More recent empirical work has delved into infancy, childhood and adolescence to identify positive and negative influences upon the life trajectories of young people (National Crime Prevention 1999). The influences range from parenting styles, personality and learning disabilities, to diet and perinatal health. They can be divided into factors that help children avoid engaging in antisocial behaviour (protective factors), and those that increase the risk of these behaviours (risk factors) (Farrington 1998). The presence of one or more risk factors is not determinative of antisocial behaviour in youth. Some juveniles with multiple risk factors present in their environment never engage in offending behaviour (Losel & Bender 2003).

A substantial body of research has sought to identify risk factors specifically preceding alcohol and drug abuse in youth. Table 2.1 illustrates many aspects of young peoples' lives that have been identified as risk factors for criminal behaviour and substance abuse.

This body of research underscores the complexity of juvenile crime and the range of influences upon juveniles' choices concerning drug use. Many factors that increase the chance of juvenile criminality also have the potential to influence juvenile drug use (Strandberg 1995). Insufficient research has been conducted to determine with certainty how different risk factors affect girls and boys, although it appears that abusive family environments are more often associated with problem behaviours among females (Dembo et al. 1998; cf Newcomb et al. 1986).

Given this research, it is worth noting that youths in detention frequently experience multiple risk factors in their lives. For example:

• 43 per cent of youths in Putnins's (2001) study reported that they believed a member of their family had a problem with drugs or alcohol;
• detainees have reported high rates of suicidal ideation (26%), with up to nine per cent reporting an attempt at suicide (Fasher et al. 1997);
• 88 per cent of juvenile detainees in a comprehensive New South Wales health survey reported mild, moderate or severe symptoms consistent with a psychological disorder (Department of Juvenile Justice 2003); and
• American research found 65 per cent of young female detainees and 24 per cent of males had experienced sexual abuse (Dembo et al. 1990).

Table 2.1: Key risk factors for alcohol/drug abuse and criminal offending among juveniles

	Risk factors	References
Individual factors	Boredom Perceived positive psychological and physiological effects of drugs Prior detention for offending behaviour Poor expectations for the future and low self esteem Mental health problems; conduct/attention disorders Depression and psychological distress Unconventionality and tolerance for deviance Sensation seeking and the desire for novel and unusual experiences Low sense of social responsibility Early use of alcohol Changing houses and schools often	Nagin et al. 1995; Dobinson & Ward 1985; Nurco 1998; Salmelainen 1995; Stevenson & Forsythe 1998; Blumstein et al 1986; Babinski et al. 1999; Bailey et al 1992; Farrell et al 1992; Newcomb et al. 1986; Stockwell et al. 2004 Sexual or physical abuse
Family	Family instability Absence of a capable guardian, lack of supervision at key times Family poverty Criminal parents; inconsistent, harsh or abusive parenting; rejecting attitudes; low parental supervision or involvement in child's life Separation or divorce and parental conflict Parents unemployed/welfare dependency; poor family housing High levels of alcohol consumption in family Parent drug use Poor relationship with parents Parental attitudes favourable to drug use and or antisocial behaviour	Nagin & Farrington 1992; Nagin et al. 1995; Blumstein et al. 1986; Hindelang et al. 1978; Sampson & Lauritsen 1990; Fergusoon & Horwood 1997; Farrington & Coid 2003; Strandberg 1995; Hartford et al. 1992; Blum & Rinehart 1997; Farrell et al. 1992; Newcomb et al. 1986; Stockwell et al. 2004; Sheridan 1995
School	Academic failure or lower levels of education Truancy and low commitment to schooling Leaving school early and frequent school changes Influence of school peers	Kelly et al. 1997; Nagin et al. 1995; Strandberg 1995; Newcomb et al. 1986; Stockwell et al, 2004
Peers	Delinquent or antisocial peers Poor peer relations, low popularity, social isolation Peer pressure to use drugs Perceived peer approval of drug use Peer drug use	Peri et al. 1997; Bailey et al. 1992; Farrell et al. 1992; Newcomb et al. 1986; Kelly et al. 1997
Community/ neighbourhood	Poverty Community disorganisation Availability of drugs and firearms Exposure to violence and crime within community	Oberwittler 2004; Farrington & Coid 2003; Van Wilsem; 2004

Patterns of initiation with alcohol and drugs

Young people use alcohol and drugs for a variety of reasons, including as a reaction to disturbed backgrounds and the influence of peers and societal attitudes (Dembo et al. 1998). Although drug use is frequently associated with social disadvantage, high levels of use have also been reported among youths from families in the highest 20 per cent of incomes (Community Drug Summit 2001).

Chapter 1 illustrated that young offenders use drugs more frequently than others in their age group. One in five detained youths in Putnins's (2001) South Australian study reported that they had a problem with substance abuse, and the rate among the female detainees was higher (31%). Juvenile detention does not appear to assist young people in breaking habits of drug abuse. Participants in the DUCO adult male study who had spent time in detention as a juvenile were more likely to have reported regular poly drug use and to have self-reported addiction (Makkai & Payne 2003). There is also evidence that young offenders first try drugs at an earlier age than the general population (Johnson 2001). In DUMA, the average age that young people detained by police self-reported cannabis use was 13 (Wei et al. 2003) compared with 16 years of age in the general population (Killias & Ribeaud 1999).

There are indicators that the most dangerous early drug using behaviour is poly drug use. For instance, a review of international literature suggests that early poly drug use is a 'unique predictor of drug use problems and other adjustment difficulties at age 21-22' (Loxely et al 2004:27 see also Lynskey & Hall 1998). However, researchers have attempted to tease out the order in which adolescents first use substances, including tobacco, alcohol and drugs (Donnermeyer & Chung 1991). The importance of this for policy and practice is that if serious drug use can be avoided in the teen years and early twenties, it is unlikely to develop at all, since rates of initiation decline steadily from the early- to mid-twenties onwards (Kandel & Logan 1984).

One hypothesis is that use of 'soft' drugs, such as alcohol and cannabis, act as stepping stones or gateways to the use of 'hard' drugs, such as amphetamines, ecstasy and heroin (Pudney 2002; Brook et al. 1992). Stepping stone hypotheses are contentious in that they ascribe causal relationship from the use of one substance to another (see further Makkai & Payne 2003; Brook et al. 1992; Huizinga & Elliot 1981; Kandel & Logan 1984).

Although the issue of causality is debated, research has found similar sequences in the ages at which juveniles first try alcohol and cannabis. One New York cohort study of youths indicated that more than 85 per cent of males and females who had used illicit drugs initially progressed from alcohol to cannabis to other illicit drugs (Kandal & Logan 1984). Alcohol has also been found to precede cannabis use in other research (Newcomb et al. 1986; Killias & Ribeaud 1999; Huizinga & Elliot 1981).

A 21-year longitudinal study of almost 1300 children in New Zealand found that 39 per cent of participants who had used other illegal drugs had first used cannabis (Fergusson and Horwood 2000). Further, even after controlling for individual, family and social factors, those who used cannabis at least 50 times in one year were 60 times more likely to use other illegal drugs. Arguably, this finding suggests that frequent cannabis use is a precursor to illicit drug use. American and British research has also found that cannabis use precedes later use of harder drugs (Newcomb et al. 1986; Johnson et al. 1995; Brook et al. 1992; Pudney 2002) and that the probability of initiating other drug use without first trying cannabis is low (Yamaguchi & Kandel 1984).

Examination of differences between the sequence of drug use by girls and boys has produced mixed results. Evidence of sex differences in general populations of juveniles have appeared in some studies and not others (Farrell et al. 1992; Newcomb et al. 1986; cf Yamaguchi & Kandel 1984; Dembo et al. 1990; Kandel & Logan 1984). The adult males and females who self-reported drug use during adolescence in the DUCO studies revealed similar patterns. The adult males reported first cannabis use at about the age of 15, followed by use of amphetamines, heroin and cocaine in their late teens and early twenties (Makkai & Payne 2003). For the adult females, cannabis use also began at 15 years on average, but this was followed by use of benzodiazepines, then amphetamines, heroin and cocaine in the late teens and early twenties (Johnson 2004). In South Australia, the main sex differences in drug use patterns were that female adolescent detainees were more likely than the males to report using most classes of substances, particularly narcotics, inhalants and stimulants, and injecting drugs (Putnins 2001).

Indigenous participants in the DUCO adult males study reported lower rates of illegal drug use than non-Indigenous participants (Makkai & Payne 2003). The average age of initiation with any drug was 16, compared with 15 for non-Indigenous offenders (Makkai & Payne 2003). Similarly, although the age of first use was not reported, the Indigenous youths in South Australia reported less use of most substances, including inhalants, than non-Indigenous youths (Putnins 2001).

The drugs-crime link

Intricate models of the pathways adolescents may take through delinquency have been developed. They incorporate criminality and, to a lesser extent, drug use (see for example, Tatem Kelly et al. 1997). However, there are no theories of the drugs-crime connection that specifically focus on juvenile offenders to the exclusion of adults. The central explanatory models described in the DUCO adult female report are as follows (White & Gorman 2000; cited in Johnson 2004):

• drug use leads to crime;
• crime leads to drug use; and
• drug use and crime are not causally related, but are the result of a third factor.

The first explanation can be divided into three hypotheses. These are that the use of drugs leads to crime because of: the psychopharmacological effects of the drugs; the costs of the drugs encouraging users to acquire money via crime; or the violence associated with the drug trade (Goldstein 1985; cited in Johnson 2004). The second explanatory model suggests that engaging in criminal activity draws offenders into criminal subcultures where drugs (and alcohol) are readily available. Offenders are influenced by the norms of the subculture, one of which is drug and alcohol use. The final model views both drug use and criminality as behaviours that are symptomatic of a third common cause. These might include childhood experiences of abuse, family problems or academic failure (White & Gorman 2000; cited in Johnson 2004). Johnson (2004) also makes reference to rites of passage as a potential third common cause. That is, in some social groups drug use and criminal acts may be driven by the same motivation, such as to gain group status through exciting or risk-taking behaviours (Chaiken & Chaiken 1990; Simpson 2003; cited in Johnson 2004). These observations seem particularly pertinent to youth crime, given the prominence of risk-taking behaviour and the influence of youth gangs (see White 2002).

It is not clear from research to date how well these explanatory models apply to juvenile crime and drug use. Some studies have concluded that for the most part, juvenile crime precedes drug use (Pudney 2002; Huizinga & Elliot 1981). In the DUCO adult female study, the general lifetime progression of the participants was to begin drug use at age 15 before crime at 17 (Johnson 2004). Over half of the DUCO adult male participants began offending before their drug use, and 17 per cent began in the opposite order (Makkai & Payne 2003). Twenty-nine per cent of the DUCO adult males began using drugs and offending in the same year. This supports observations made in other studies that drug use and juvenile criminality are symptoms of long- or short-term delinquent episodes (Hammersley et al. 2003).

In regards to juvenile property crime, Killias and Ribeaud (1999) suggest that addiction to hard drugs escalates offending rates. Juveniles who use hard drugs have been found to commit more property offences than other groups (Wei et al. 2003; Hammersley et al. 2003; Killias and Ribeaud 1999). Studies of adults have also found that crime precedes drugs and that drug use escalates criminal behaviour among property offenders (Makkai & Payne 2003; Chaiken & Chaiken 1990; cited in Johnson 2004). Evidence of escalation has also been found in juvenile populations who use heroin and/or cocaine (Johnson et al. 1991).

Interestingly, the drugs-crime connection may differ depending on the age at which either drug use or criminal behaviour begins. It appears that causal relationships between drugs and crime are less likely to emerge when the onset of delinquent behaviour occurs in early adolescence. On the other hand, later onset of delinquency has been causally linked to general offences (Welte et al. 2001).

Crime attributed to drugs

Regarding adults, it is worth noting that 30 per cent of the participants in the DUCO adult male study personally attributed their offending to drug and alcohol abuse (Makkai & Payne 2003). This rate was even higher (41%) among the DUCO adult female cohort (Johnson 2004). Strong evidence of a link exists between the increase in numbers of heroin addicts in New South Wales and increases in robbery rates (Chilvers & Weatherburn 2003; cited in Johnson 2004). Further, an American analysis of almost 1300 heroin users found heroin to be closely associated with crime (Lynskey & Hall 1998).

Turning to adolescents, several differences between juveniles in detention and the general adolescent population were described in detail in Chapter 1. Prior to incarceration, juvenile detainees in New South Wales, Queensland and South Australia tend to:

1. use drugs more often;
2. use a wider range of drugs; and
3. start using drugs and alcohol at an earlier age than the general juvenile population

(Lennings et al. 2003; Lennings & Pritchard 1999; Putnins 2001).

More than 60 per cent of non-Indigenous detainees and 46 per cent of Indigenous detainees reported being under the influence of any substance at the time of their last offence (Putnins 2001).

Young people detained by the police in the DUMA project have indicated similar chronic drug use patterns as the juveniles in detention (Wei et al. 2003).

Youths whose urinalysis revealed positive readings for cocaine, amphetamines or opiates self-reported committing crime at twice the annual rate of other youths.

Overall, the rates of property crime amongst adolescent users of hard drugs are higher than users of soft drugs only, and markedly higher than non-drug users (Killias & Ribeaud 1999). An American study found that two per cent of their juvenile cohort self-reported multiple serious offences and cocaine and/or heroin use (Johnson et al. 1991). This sub-cohort accounted for 40-60 per cent of the cohort's drug sale offences, robberies and other serious theft offences. Youths have also been ready to attribute their offending to drug use; 40 per cent of 300 young offenders in a British study felt that their offending behaviour was linked to their substance abuse (Hammersley et al. 2003).

In addition:

• alcohol has been identified as being closely associated with male juvenile violent crime (Lennings & Pritchard 1999; Lennings et al. 2003). This is thought to be due to alcohol's disinhibiting properties that can increase aggressive tendencies and risk-taking (Graham et al. 2001);
• alcohol also appears to be a contributing factor in juvenile property offences (Welte et al. 2001; Fergusson et al. 1996);
• other substances associated with violence include stimulants/amphetamines (Hammersley et al. 2003; Lennings & Pritchard 1999), cocaine (Lennings et al. 2003), and cannabis (Fergusson et al. 1996); and
• a study of reoffending rates among 458 juveniles in South Australia indicated that alcohol and inhalants had a significant relationship with recidivism. In particular, six months after release from juvenile detention, those who reported using alcohol several times a week or more were 77 per cent more likely to reoffend than youths whose use of alcohol was less frequent (Putnins 2003).

Summary

National and international research suggests that drug use is as equally entangled within the dynamics of juvenile crime as with adult crime. Compared with other juveniles, young offenders are found to begin abusing substances at an earlier age, use a greater variety of substances and abuse substances more frequently. The next chapter of this monograph describes the demographics of the 467 young participants in this study, followed by questions of their drug using and criminal behaviours.