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Trends & Issues in Crime and Criminal Justice

No. 267: Key findings from the drug use careers of offenders (DUCO) study

Toni Makkai and Jason Payne
ISBN 0 642 53820 3 ; ISSN 0817-8542
October 2003

Abstract

This paper 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 paper presents a summary of key findings from a larger report to the Australian Government Attorney General's Department, 'Drugs and crime : a study of incarcerated male offenders', Australian Institute of Criminology, 2003 (Research and public policy series; no. 52). It focuses on the development of the criminal career, drawing comparisons among regular offenders of 13 different offence types which fall into the three broad categories of property offences, violent offences and drug offences. The paper explores issues concerning the intersection of drug use and criminal behaviour, and reports findings on lifetime prevalence and current regular use of cannabis, amphetamines, heroin, cocaine and poly drug use by different offender types, as well as mean age of first drug use by offender type and mean age progression for drugs and crime. It comments on a variety of risk factors associated with offending, reports offenders' views on the extent to which their personal use of illegal drugs or alcohol has impacted on their lifetime offending career, and finds that one third of all offenders causally attributed alcohol and/or illegal drugs to the offence/s for which they were incarcerated.

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