I've always been interested in the amount of crimes that occur while influenced by either drugs or alcohol. As I was researching this, the results were slightly shocking. I found out that less than half of committed crimes were caused by people who were either on drugs, or drinking. One statistic showed that about 25% of all crimes are drug induced. Although this may not seem like a lot, it's still 1/4 of all crimes. Another statistic showed that the first time a person commits a crime, they're more likely to be sober. However, if that same person commits a second crime, the person is more likely to be influenced by a drug/ alcohol. Another statistic I found rather interesting is that 19% of all inmates are in jail because they tried to attain money from drugs. It also said that 81% of drug arrest were due to possession. I think that's pretty nuts, I mean you'd think they'd learn to hide it more or just not do it to begin with.
Here's the link where I got all my information...
http://www.safetycops.com/drug_related_crimes.htm
Here's the link where I got all my information...
http://www.safetycops.com/drug_related_crimes.htm
This is a very interesting little article. Drug related crimes make up a significant part of the prisoners in this country. Much of our police force spends a ton of time trying to catch these criminals. The reason I find this interesting, is because some people believe the drugs should be legal. I have heard arguments that if we legalized certain drugs, such as marijuana, we would be able to lock less people up in prison, and make drugs “safer” to use by being able to closely regulate it. (By limiting the black market) Because of closer regulation, perhaps even these drug related crimes would decrease. This is an interesting argument to me, so I decided to do a tiny little bit of research. I was aware that other countries have tried to legalize or decriminalize certain drugs. I found this website, which provides an interesting argument against the legalization of drugs.
http://www.druglibrary.org/schaffer/debate/myths/myths4.htm
This website is staunchly against the legalization of drugs. It makes arguments that places such as Amsterdam and Great Britain saw an increase in the people addicted to drugs. Also, some doctors who were allowed to prescribe certain drugs, started selling the drugs for large amounts of money. In Amsterdam, were you can get marijuana from ordinary cafes, the website says many people are angry because of vandalism that is occurring more and more, and the streets are covered with addicts. I thought this was an interesting argument. I thought this related to psychology, because people’s morals differ from people to people, and this makes a difference in how we regulate our society
How about I throw some more statistics at you? LOL. First, Approximately 14.8 million Americans (6.7% of household populations age 12+) use drugs on a regular basis. 10-20% of them are the stereotypical hard-core junkies (approximately 1-2% of the regular American population). The criminal justice system spends $45.5 Billion ANNUALLY on the war against drugs ($62 billion a year is spent by the users themselves on drugs). So to put this in perspective, the government is spending $45.5 annually to keep 1-2% of the problem population under control.
What's more alarming is that according to the 1998 JAMA study, boys who had been sexually abused are 25 times more likely to use alcohol, cocaine, and marijuana by the time they were in 6th grade. Also, the 1999 National Center on Addiction and Substance Abuse reported that children whose parents abused drugs or alcohol are 3 times more likely to be abused and 4 times more likely to be neglected (evening simply HAVING alcohol in the home showed an increase in abuse and neglect rates).
So what's the answer on how to handle this devastating problem? No one truly has a concrete solution. What we do know, is that the current drug policies are not very effective in resolving this issue. Currently in my Drugs, Crime, and Society class we're debating this issue. Legalization of all or certain drugs has been one arguments that we've considered but many of us are disregarding it as a viable option.