Literature Review: The Impact of Heroin Prices on Robbery Trends

Authors Avatar

        

Literature Review:

The Impact of Heroin Prices on Robbery Trends

 

Introduction

     In Australia, as in other western countries, illicit drug users often resort to crime in order to fund their habit. Heroin dependence has been a major factor in the escalation of robbery over the past four decades and there is a strong link between the rising price of heroin and increase in property crime. Research has revealed that drug treatment, such as methadone clinics, has proved effective in decreasing the robbery rate; however there is a lack of literature on whether a decrease in the price of heroin would cause this decline. If the Australian Government were to legalise heroin, pure heroin would be available at a very low price in order to cut out the black market. Heroin would thus decrease in price by approximately 50 per cent. However, there is a lack of information available on whether this price decrease would subsequently reduce the property crime rate.

      Therefore, this literature review will be focused on four areas:

  1. The link between drugs and crime
  2. Why dependent heroin users commit crimes
  3. The price of heroin and its effect on the crime rate
  4. The effect that lower heroin prices would have on the crime rate

 

1. The link between drugs and crime

    There is an abundance of evidence which clearly reveals that dependent drug use and crime are causally connected. Maher et al states that in a sample of 202 heroin users, 70 per cent indicated that they derived a portion of their income from acquisitive property crime, which includes burglary, shoplifting and un-armed street robberies.  Although acquisitive property crime came second to the drug market in terms of average weekly wage, the average income was $782 per week, with an annual average income of approximately $40,664.  The NSW Bureau of Crime Statistics and Research (BOCSAR) further verify this link between drugs and property crime, estimating that the number of heroin users in Australia has increased from approximately 670 in 1967 to about 67,000 in 1997. Consequently, as Figure 1 reveals, the robbery rate has increased significantly from 1966. 

    BOCSAR has also studied other possible causes for this increase in robbery, such as an increase in male unemployment. However, while robbery rates increased sharply from 1996, male unemployment decreased; hence male unemployment was not a determinative factor. BOCSAR thus concluded that an increase in heroin dependence (revealed by an increase in heroin overdose) has a major impact upon the increase of robbery. Other studies that further verify this link between drugs and crime include Mukherjee, Jorgensen, McBride and McCoy and The Official Salvation Army Response to Proposed Heroin Trials. Therefore, since the correlation of high levels of drugs use and crime is ‘one of the most reliable results obtainable in criminology,’ it is widely acknowledged throughout all of the literature that drugs and crime are causally linked.

2. Why dependent heroin users commit crimes

      There is wide debate on the nature of drugs and crime, and whether dependent drug users commit crimes in order to sustain their habit, or whether it is crime that precedes drug use. Dobson and Ward reported that 52 per cent of drug treatment patients became regularly involved in property crime after the onset of heroin use. The street price of heroin is extremely expensive, and the Australian Institute of Criminology suggests that heroin users consume a median amount of 7 weight grams of pure heroin per week, at a cost of approximately $2,000 per week. To fund such an expensive habit, Mukherjee reveals that 90 per cent of users specified ‘money for drugs’ as their main reason for property crimes. Therefore, according to current literature, in order to sustain a $2,000 per week habit, a heroin addict must either turn to the drug market, crime or prostitution.  

Join now!

      However, Maher et al oppose this view, stating that 69 per cent of participants ‘reported the onset of criminal behaviour prior to the onset of regular heroin use.’ Therefore, these two studies are in opposition to one another. Both studies, however, have quite a small sample, and they fail to provide information on the method utilised in obtaining their sample, and whether the sample was cross-sectional. However, Maher et al maintain that even if an individual started committing property crimes prior to drug use, it would be necessary to continue committing property crimes in order to sustain his or her drug ...

This is a preview of the whole essay