Evolving Crack Cocaine Careers: New Users, Quitters and Long Term Combination Drug Users in N.W. England

The current study explores the roles offenders see themselves playing during an offence and their relationship to different crime types. One hundred and twenty incarcerated offenders indicated the narrative roles they acted out whilst committing a specific crime they remembered well. The data were subjected to Smallest Space Analysis (SSA) and four themes were identified: Hero, Professional, Revenger and Victim in line with the recent theoretical framework posited for Narrative Offence Roles . Further analysis showed that different subsets of crimes were more like to be associated with different narrative offence roles. Hero and Professional were found to be associated with property offences (theft, burglary and shoplifting), drug offences and robbery and Revenger and Victim were found to be associated with violence, sexual offences and murder. The theoretical implications for understanding crime on the basis of offenders' narrative roles as well as practical implications are discussed. 2In the last years, the social sciences have witnessed a strong upsurge of interest in narrative and stories as they apply to human lives and social relationships. Narrative methods have proliferated in many fields, and psychological theorists are challenged by the notion that human activity and experience are filled with "meaning". Out of this has grown the view that like literary constructions, life stories can be analyzed in terms of plots, settings, scenes,

show abstract

“…For many drug offenders, crime is about sustaining a lifestyle which includes drug use (Brain, Parker & Bottomley, 1998).…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Offenders’ Crime Narratives Across Different Types of Crimes

Ιωάννου

Canter

Youngs

et al. 2015

Journal of Forensic Psychology Practice

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

show abstract

“…Falck et al [7] followed up 439 not-in-treatment crack users who had no criminal histories and who had stable accommodation and found that the proportion of patients who had been using crack more than once a day was 50% lower at 2 years. In a 6-month follow-up study, Brain et al [6] observed an oscillation in crack use both in relation to the frequency and quantity of use. However, 25% of the sample had stopped using crack, although only 10% were not using any other psychoactive substance.…”

Section: Pattern Of Crack Cocaine Consumptiona Trend Towards Abstinence?mentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Crack/cocaine use has been extensively studied, but there are remarkably few long-term follow-up studies of this population [6][7][8][9][10][11] and we know very little about their long-term outcomes. Brain et al [6] followed up a group of 50 crack users over a 2-year period.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

See 1 more Smart Citation

Crack Cocaine: A Five-Year Follow-Up Study of Treated Patients

Ribeiro¹,

Dunn²,

Sesso³

et al. 2006

Eur Addict Res

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Objectives: To follow-up a group of 131 crack cocaine users and examine drug use, treatment experience, employment status, involvement in crime and mortality at 2 and 5 years. Methods: Consecutive crack-dependent patients who were admitted to a detoxification unit in São Paulo between 1992 and 1994 were re-interviewed on two occasions: 1995–1996 and 1998–1999. Results: 5 years after treatment information was obtained on 124 (95%) of the original cohort. 39.7% (n = 52) of the patients reported having been abstinent from cocaine for at least the last year, and 21.4% (n = 28) had used the drug. Of those subjects not using cocaine at 2 years, 19 (62%) were still abstinent at 5 years. Twenty-three (17.6%) patients had died by the 5-year follow-up with homicide, due to firearms or other weapons, being the commonest cause (n = 13). The annual adjusted mortality rate for the sample was 24.92 deaths/1,000 individuals, the excess mortality rate was of 21.64 deaths/1,000 individuals, and the standardized mortality ratio was 7.60. A history of injecting drug use, unemployment at the time of the index admission and administrative discharge at the index admission were factors that contributed to the risk of dying over the next 5 years. Conclusions: There was a progressive movement towards abstinence over the follow-up period, and there was evidence that once abstinence had been achieved it was maintained. On the other hand, the mortality rate was extremely high and was higher among those who were still using crack at 2 years.

show abstract

“…From the mid-1990s, the appearance of crack alongside heroin is also documented (Brain et al 1998 ) , leading policymakers to become seriously concerned about the heroin and the crack problem by the late 1990s (Seddon 2007 ) . This second wave of substantially increased heroin use has been associated with the foregone rave era that effected a relative 'normalisation' of illicit drug use (cf.…”

Section: Chapter 15mentioning

confidence: 99%

The Role of Community-Mindedness in the Self-Regulation of Drug Cultures

Stallwitz¹

2012

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Evolving Crack Cocaine Careers: New Users, Quitters and Long Term Combination Drug Users in N.W. England

Cited by 17 publications

References 25 publications

Offenders’ Crime Narratives Across Different Types of Crimes

Offenders’ Crime Narratives Across Different Types of Crimes

Crack Cocaine: A Five-Year Follow-Up Study of Treated Patients

The Role of Community-Mindedness in the Self-Regulation of Drug Cultures

Contact Info

Product

Resources

About