Drug Use and Crime among Two Cohorts of Women Narcotics Users: An Empirical Assessment

The relationship between drug use and crime among women has been given minimal research attention, and the few studies that have been undertaken have relied on arrests to indicate crimes, or have interviewed only institutionalized women or very small street samples. This report describes the drug use and crime of 286 active women narcotics users interviewed on the streets of Miami, Florida in a two-stage project. The first cohort, studied during 1977–78, were heavily involved with a wide variety of drugs and were extremely active in property crimes, vice offenses and drug sales. The second cohort, interviewed during 1983–84, displayed substantially different patterns of both drug use and crime. These differences are analyzed in relationship to changes in drug availability, drug use fads, legislation, law enforcement practices, and historical circumstance. </jats:p

Crack-Cocaine Use and Street Crime

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. </jats:p

Black Women, Heroin and Crime: Some Empirical Notes

There has been a paucity of literature on the relationship between women, drugs, and crime, and the lack of research focusing upon black women is even more pronounced. The present study focuses on the self-reported drug use and criminal involvement of 63 black female heroin users in Miami, Florida. The data suggest a wide variety of drug use and criminal involvement. Criminal involvement typically begins significantly prior to expensive drug use, which raises serious questions concerning the causal relationship between drugs and crime. Finally, it was found that only a small percentage of the women relied heavily on a single type of criminal activity for income as defined by a particular activity constituting over 50% of their total offenses. </jats:p