Crack-Cocaine Use and Street Crime

Abstract

Most existing research on the relationship between drug use and street crime relates to heroin users and thus predates the widespread availability of crack-cocaine; social science studies of crime among crack users are few in number and focus on a limited set of offense types. This article reports findings from interviews with 387 adult crack users in Miami, Florida, regarding their drug use and criminal histories and their current involvement in a broad range of criminal activities. Many significant differences are noted between the street and treatment subsamples, particularly an earlier drug and crime initiation and a more exclusive focus on one crime type — retail drug sales — among street respondents. Gender differences are markedly smaller, especially in the street sample. Comparisons are also made between the street sample and a similar sample of heroin users interviewed in Miami some ten years earlier.