Study disproves women's crime notion

[boulder]

A STUDY has upended popular notions that crime comes before drug use among women who end up in jail.

 

The Australian Institute of Criminology looked at the cases of 470 women who were in jail in 2003, following research that found criminal activity tended to precede drug use.

 

Researcher Holly Johnson found that among the case studies in the latest report, drug use more often preceded the felonies.

 

The research found 35 per cent of women used illegal drugs before offending, 31 per cent began using illegal drugs and began offending within the same year and 34 per cent began offending prior to any illegal drug use.

 

"This shows that, in general, women in prison were twice as likely as men to have used drugs prior to offending," Ms Johnson said in her report.

 

"For women, lifetime drug using and offending careers are equally likely to begin simultaneously as to commence with drug use or with criminal offending."

 

She said the early teenage years were crucial in the lives of those who went on to commit crime.

 

"For all groups of offenders, with the exception of fraud offenders, there is a brief period, between about age 13 and 16, when they are initiated into drug use, become regular users, and commit their first offence," she said.

 

"For fraud offenders, drug use happens a few years later and offending several years later.

 

"Property offenders commit their first property crime after trying drugs but before regular drug use, which differs from male property offenders who tend to commit their first offence prior to using drugs."

 

The report's findings paralleled those of earlier studies which found that crime, particularly theft, escalated as drug use increased.

 

Female violent offenders were similar to males in that their first offences preceded the initial use of illegal drugs by almost two years.

 

But unlike males, female violent offenders become regular drug users more than two years before their first violence offence.

 

The study found most offenders started with cannabis, but where serious drugs such as heroin and amphetamines were concerned, in most cases a criminal career began before drug taking.

 

However, about one in six women offenders began experimentation with serious drugs before committing any offence.

 

"This suggests that, for these women, serious drug use played a role in shaping their criminal careers," Ms Johnson said.

 

The study found 87 per cent of women in jail were victims of sexual, physical or emotional abuse – two-thirds of them suffering the abuse during childhood.

 

Childhood abuse was closely linked to future violent offending, drug-use and involvement in the sex trade.

 

Ms Johnson said the study could be useful in developing new strategies for deterring women from offending and tackling drug dependence.

 

She said government and other agencies needed to co-operate more on both issues.

 

Drug dependence and crime could be prevented through rapid intervention with drug users and effective drug treatment programs, early intervention with families and children of high-risk women and programs targeted to the needs of individual women, Ms Johnson said.

 

http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/commo...255E421,00.html