Retrospective self-reports of behavior are widely used in alcohol and drug research. However, assessments of the reliability and validity of such data among certain populations are nonexistent. This study examines the ability of the Addiction Severity Index (ASI), a widely used clinical and research instrument, to provide valid and reliable data within a homeless population of drug misusers. The results support the usefulness of the ASI in producing quality data among homeless substance misusers seeking treatment. Qualitative data gathered from field interviewers are used to highlight strategies for enhancing the quality of ASI data in the future.
Despite numerous studies, the nature of the unemployment-crime relationship remains controversial. The relationship should be clearer for some segments of the population than for others, but is obscured by the use of general population data. Exploring this possibility through the use of a model developed by Cantor and Land (1985), a time-series analysis is conducted to determine relationships among age- and race-specific rates of unemployment and corresponding rates of arrests for homicide, robbery, and burglary for the United States during the period 1959–1987. Negative criminal opportunity-related and positive criminal motivation-related effects are found at the aggregate level, but these vary among age groups and are more evident for white than for African American arrest rates. Further, these effects hold even when controlling for the potential influence of other variables identified in recent research as having an impact on the unemployment-crime relationship.
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