Table Of ContentContents
Preface
Acknowledgements
1 Constructing the Problem of Drugs and Crime
The received view of the problem
Everyday thinking about drugs and crime
Risk
Pragmatic realism
The biological metaphor
Summary
Discussion points
2 What Are Drugs?
Definitions
Which drugs?
Understanding discourse about drugs
Conclusions
Summary
Discussion points
3 What Is Crime?
Crimes are against the law, but laws vary
Law is about maintaining and managing society’s power structures
The behaviours of individuals tend to attract more law
The nation is no longer the primary lawmaker
Developed societies are becoming safer
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The major categories for crimes by individuals
Defining or recognizing crime
Violence
Defining crime in practice
Researching crime
Summary
Discussion points
4 Drugs–Crime Connections
Detailed drugs–crime connections
Summary
Discussion points
5 Drugs, Crime, Adolescence and Youth
Theories of development of drugs and crime
What is the ‘normal’ result of development?
Theorizing adulthood
How do children become well-adjusted adults?
What is normal substance use and crime in adulthood?
Summary
Discussion points
6 Drugs, Crime and Contemporary Society
Risk society and addiction
Society’s definition of drugs
Costs of drugs and crime
Why do people take drugs?
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The myth of addiction
The licit substance supply industries
Illegal drugs
Summary
Discussion points
7 Prevention
Understanding the message
Relating the message to one’s own behaviour
Considering the source of the message to be legitimate and credible
Accepting the message as true
Believing that changing one’s behaviour would reduce one’s fear
Considering the fear to override other reasons for continuing the
behaviour
Believing that one is capable of changing one’s behaviour
What are the outcomes of prevention?
Summary
Discussion points
8 Treatment of Drug Dependence
What is substance dependence or addiction?
Drug problems and drug abuse
Outcomes for treatment of substance problems
Generic properties of efficacious treatment
Denial or ambivalence?
Some widely used and often effective treatments
Co-morbidity
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Treatment for the under-sixteens
More on costs
Drugs treatment and criminal justice
Summary
Discussion points
9 The Futures of Drugs and Crime
Coping with the evidence
Surviving practice
Outcomes
Attitudes
Tackling drugs and crime
Conclusions
Discussion points
References
Index
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To my daughters Clara, Marika and Suzanna: may you know little of
either
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Copyright © Richard Hammersley 2008
The right of Richard Hammersley to be identified as Author of this Work
has been asserted in accordance with the UK Copyright, Designs and
Patents Act 1988.
First published in 2008 by Polity Press
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Preface
People are often surprised, sometimes shocked, when I do not share fully
theirgraveconcernsaboutdrugsandcrime.Thereisoftenaneagernessto
hear from ‘an expert’ how bad the problems are, maybe even worse than
they imagined. Through my research and reading I believe that drugs and
crime problems are no larger than many other problems in the world, that
theymaybeunavoidableconsequencesofthetypesofsocietymanyofus
live in today, and that more caring about some of the larger problems,
rather than drugs, might be more beneficial to humankind, as well as
perhaps having the pleasant spinoff effect of reducing drugs and crime
problems. Among those larger problems are poverty, famine, injustice,
ignorance and avarice.
My research-based knowledge of drugs and crime has included
interviewing over a hundred drug users myself over the years, also
analysing interviews with many more conducted by other people. While
experiencedspecialistpractitionersandotherresearchershavehadsimilar
levels of exposure to drug users’ lives, this amount of experience is not
common among generalist practitioners, whether health-care
professionals, law enforcement officers or social workers, policy makers,
journalists or indeed drug users themselves, or their families. Too often,
people play the ace of their lived experience in debate about drugs as if
theirrelativelynarrowexperienceswerethelastword,ortheysimplyrely
upon a vague consensus that drugs are evils without parallel.
Ialsobelievethatmanypolicyactionsagainstdrugsandcrimehavebeen
motivated primarily by the need for policy makers and policy making to
be seen to be doing something that looks to the public, particularly the
media, to be likely to work. Often, policy simply panders to the crudest,
cruellest and most ignorant opinions on drugs and crime, which sells
newspapers and satisfies society’s most punitive urges, at least in public.
One review notes that current UK policy uses prohibitionist rhetoric but
implements harm reduction policies (RSA, 2007). This is better than
implementing prohibitionist policies, which for example hindered HIV
prevention in the USA (Drucker and Clear, 1999), and better too than the
archaic and gleeful application of punishment under the guise of
deterrence, despite its ineffectiveness.
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