Suchergebnisse

Despite its intuitive appeal, the primary prevention of delinquency has received scant attention by theoreticians and program developers. Such programs raise ethical questions, are likely to face considerable public resistance, are expensive to develop and implement, and are likely to show measurable impact only after several years. It is suggested that existing drug and alcohol education programs have successfully dealt with many of these problems. Although not specifically aimed at delinquency prevention, the content of contemporary drug and alcohol education programs is relevant to delinquent behavior. By examining the operation of these programs, much can be learned that is directly applicable to the development of programs for the primary prevention of delinquency.

This article presents an analysis of intake survey data from 3,698 adult offenders placed on probation in a midwestern state. The data describe differences between urban and rural adult probation admissions. Included in the analysis and discussion is the identification of drug use and abuse and the ability of probation systems in the state to provide adequate screening and treatment. Other demographic and offense characteristics aid in profiling rural probation offenders, including similarities and differences with their urban counterparts.

This study uses surveys of citizens and criminal justice employees to illustrate the multidimensional nature of views about decriminalization. Both groups supported strict legal penalties for marijuana offenses and believed that if legal restrictions were eased other types of crime would increase. Ironically, they also expressed doubts about the effectiveness of the law. They believed that even if they had all the resources necessary the police could not stop marijuana use. At the same time they were willing to pay higher taxes for more drug enforcement. This study highlights the problem with treating either decriminalization or criminalization as simple ideas and notes the implications of this for developing public policy.

Does methamphetamine matter? -- Listening to meth : the lessons of history -- Physiological effects of meth -- Social effects of meth -- Cooking meth -- Methamphetamine in rural communities -- Treatment and recovery support resources for methamphetamine dependence

Methamphetamine laboratories have been a widely variable problem across the United States, very problematic in some communities but not at all in others. This study analyzes the variation in methamphetamine labs using demographic and geographic information on 17,720 seized laboratories. The analysis found that traditional community-level factors representing economic disadvantage, social disorganization, and civic community theories demonstrated little power to predict the presence of methamphetamine laboratories, although they were useful in predicting other types of crime. A single spatial lag variable measuring a county's geographic proximity to other counties with drug laboratory seizures accounted for almost half of the variance in meth lab prevalence and contributed substantially to the explained variance in index crime arrests and drug arrests. The findings demonstrate the utility of spatial lag variables in assessing proximity effects in explaining crime patterns, while demonstrating that fully explaining different forms of crime may require different theoretical models.