Abstract
The study consisted of two cross-sectional surveys, conducted with a) community based juveniles and adults under suspicion of having committed an offence (n = 90) and b) adults remanded in custody in Perth prisons (n = 76). The focus of this paper is on describing the drug use and criminal histories of respondents as a context for examining their use of drugs in the period immediately preceding an alleged offence, and the relationships between drug use preceding the offence, and offence type.
There were high rates of use of most drug classes in both study groups and most respondents could be characterised as polydrug users. Community respondents reported that they had an average of 14 convictions and remand respondents an average of 33.5 convictions. In both study groups the majority of reported offences were breaking and entering or burglary. Almost all respondents reported that they had been using at least one drug in the 48 hours before the most recent alleged offence(s) took place. Between half and two thirds considered themselves to have been intoxicated before the offence(s), and almost one in three stated that they had been in withdrawal in the 6 hours before the alleged offence(s). The relationship between use of specific drug classes, intoxication and withdrawal in the six hours before the most recent alleged offence and the nature of those offences was assessed with bivariate analyses. It was found that the majority of such relationships were between heroin and property offences. The results are discussed in terms of the representativeness of the study groups, and the need for replication with larger and more representative samples is emphasised.
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