Drugs in American Society Erich Goode

1. Drugs in American SocietyErich Goode Drugs and Crime: What’s the Connection? Prepared by James Roberts University of Scranton

2. Chapter Outline • What’s the Nature of the Drug-Crime Link? • Drugs and Crime: Three Models • The Drugs/Violence Nexus: Three Models • The Role of Cocaine Use in Violent Behavior

3. Chapter Outline (cont.) • Heroin Addiction and Violence • Alcohol and Violence

4. What’s the Nature of the Drug-Crime Link? (cont.) • What is the connection between drug use and crime? • People who use drugs are much more likely to commit nondrug crime than nonusers • People who commit crime are much more likely to use drugs than people who do not commit crime

5. What’s the Nature of the Drug-Crime Link? (cont.) • What is the connection between drug use and crime? • Connection between certain drugs, such as heroin and crack cocaine, is vastly stronger than that between others, for instance, LSD and Ecstasy • Criminogenic = having the capacity to cause or influence the commission of criminal behavior

6. What’s the Nature of the Drug-Crime Link? • Dependent variable = a factor that is caused by another factor, the independent variable: example age (the independent variable) causes drug use (the dependent variable) • Independent variable = a casual factor, one that has effect on another factor

7. Drugs and Crime: Three Models • Three Models: • The Enslavement Model • The Predisposition Model • The Intensification Model • Which model makes the most sense?

8. 1. The Enslavement Model • Enslavement Model = the argument that more or less accidental or fortuitous narcotic addiction causes a life that revolves around engaging in money-making crimes; it is drug addiction that causes criminal behavior • If addicting drugs were dispensed in clinics, the link between drug addiction and a life of crime would be severed

9. 2. The Predisposition Model • Predisposition Model = the argument that the explanation for the connection between drug addiction and criminal behavior is that the kinds of people who are likely to engage in compulsive drug-taking behavior are also the kinds of people who are likely to engage in criminal behavior • Drugs and crime are two sides of the same behavioral syndrome

10. 3. The Intensification Model • Intensification Model = the argument that drug addiction accelerates but does not generate money-making criminal behavior, and that the predisposition to engage in both compulsive drug use and criminal behavior explains part but not all of the connection between the two • Neither the enslavement nor the predisposition model is completely faithful to the facts

11. The Drug/Violence Nexus: Three Models • Three Models: • The Psychopharmacological Model • The Economic-Compulsive Model • The Systemic Model • Which model makes the most sense?

12. The Psychopharmacological Model • Psychopharmacological Model = argues that drugs, specifically cocaine, and violence, specifically murder, are strongly connected because the direct effects of cocaine conduce or cause violent behavior • Psychological and physical effects of psychoactive substances cause users to become violent towards others

13. The Economic-Compulsive Model • Economic-Compulsive Model = argues that the connection between drug use and violence is so strong because users need money to maintain their habit and, while committing money-making crimes, users engage in such behavior, such as robbery and burglary, which often turn violent, for instances, when the victim resists or struggles • Economic crimes undertaken to support a drug habit don’t always remain simple property crimes

14. The Systemic Model • Systemic Model = argues that the reason the connection between drugs and violence is so strong is because the world of cocaine dealing is inherently conflictual, confrontational, and exploitative – and not because of the direct effects of cocaine • Systemic violence refers to the traditionally aggressive patterns of interaction within the system of drug distribution and use

15. Which Model Makes the Most Sense? • Researcher Paul Goldstein and his colleagues argue that the systemic model best explains the facts • Looking at a sample of criminal homicides in the city of New York during the late 1980s, that is, at the height of the crack epidemic, these researchers found that half were drug related, and of the ones that were drug related, 60 percent were crack related

16. Which Model Makes the Most Sense? (cont.) • It became clear that very few of the crack-related homicides (3%) were psychopharmacological in origin and relatively few (7%) also were economic-compulsive in origin • The vast majority were systemic

17. The Role of Cocaine Use in Violent Behavior • Violence tends to be gender related • As men’s cocaine abuse increases, their likelihood of being the perpetrator of violence increases • As women’s cocaine abuse increases, their likelihood of being the victim of crime increases

18. Heroin Addiction and Violence • Polydrug use = the use of more than one drug, whether at the same time or during a given period of time • Cocaine and violence are frequent companions – and the greater the amount of cocaine someone uses, the greater the likelihood, and the seriousness, of violence behavior

19. Heroin Addiction and Violence (cont.) • Prior to the 1970s, most researchers thought of the heroin addict as basically peaceful • Beginning in the early 1970s, a new view of heroin addicts emerged: Their tendency to commit violence was significantly greater than that of the ordinary criminal or property offender

20. Heroin Addiction and Violence (cont.) • It became a world of younger users, users who took many drugs, including alcohol and cocaine, in addition to heroin, users who were more likely to confront their victims in robberies rather than relying on stealth • The 1970s marked the coming of a “new breed” of heroin addicts

21. Alcohol and Violence • Drunken comportment = behavior under the influence of alcohol • Cognitive-Guidedness Approach (model/perspective) = the argument that behavior under the influence of alcohol is guided by cultural norms, rarely straying far from what is culturally acceptable

22. Alcohol and Violence (cont.) • Disinhibition Model = the argument that it is the direct effect of alcohol that causes drinkers to be liberated from society’s norms and leads to a substantial volume of dangerous, violent behavior while under the influence • Alcohol is a legal drug, but statistically speaking, drinkers have higher rates of violence than nondrinkers

23. Alcohol and Violence (cont.) • Some researches believe that alcohol is the culprit, arguing that alcohol disinhibits behavior, neutralizing the centers of our brains that force us to think twice about striking out at our fellow men and women • Other researches believe that our behavior is cognitively guided by the cultural norms, not pharmacologically guided by alcohol

24. Alcohol and Violence (cont.) • Even though cultural norms do influence and limit our behavior, alcohol does disinhibit us and this disinhibition does sometimes – more often than when sober – result in violent behavior • A substantial slice of the alcohol – violence link is psychopharmacological in nature