Duration and Timing of Substance Use Careers and Their Relationship with Crime

• In Event: Relationship of Drugs, Crime, and Criminal Justice Involvement Across the Life Course

Abstract

Researchers have found that substance use is related to offending over the life course and may even hinder the desistance process; yet there is much heterogeneity in the type of substance user (e.g., experimenters versus persistent users). This research parses out two dimensions of heterogeneity in substance use careers – duration of substance use and timing of use within the life course – to examine the differential relationships with criminal offending based on these dimensions. We analyze existing criminal history data and self-reported substance use data covering 35 years in the lives of a community cohort of African American males and females from the Woodlawn neighborhood of Chicago. This cohort is particularly well-suited to answer these research questions due to the wealth of data on the presence and timing of drug use and crime over the life course.

Authors

• Elaine Eggleston Doherty, University of Missouri-St. Louis

• Kerry M Green, University of Maryland

• Margaret E Ensminger, Johns Hopkins University