What Factors Predict the Self-Identification of Drug Dependency Among Australian Police Detainees? Prevalence, Correlates, and Implications for the Criminal Justice System

• Published date: 01 January 2021
• DOI: 10.1177/0022042620952768
• Author: Cameron T. Langfield,Jason L. Payne
• Date: 01 January 2021
• Subject Matter: Articles

https://doi.org/10.1177/0022042620952768

Journal of Drug Issues

2021, Vol. 51(1) 3 –22

© The Author(s) 2020

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DOI: 10.1177/0022042620952768

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Article

What Factors Predict the Self-

Identification of Drug Dependency

Among Australian Police

Detainees? Prevalence, Correlates,

and Implications for the Criminal

Justice System

Cameron T. Langfield1 and Jason L. Payne1

Abstract

The drug-crime nexus has received interest from both drug-crime scholars and public policy

experts internationally. While there is little disagreement that drug use is linked to higher rates

of crime, causation remains hotly contested. One area of emerging interest is the confounding

influence of “identity” in shaping long-term behavioral drug use and criminal trajectories. In this

study, we explore the prevalence with which recent drug-using police detainees self-identify as

drug-dependent and, using logistic regression, model self-identification as a function of one’s

demographic, and drug-use profile. We find that being female and younger is associated with

an increased odds of self-identifying oneself as dependent, controlling for drug use variables. Of

the five drug types, primary heroin users are the most likely to self-identify, whereas cocaine,

cannabis, and amphetamine users are less likely. To end, the potential implications of these

results are discussed, and future research avenues are explored.

Keywords

self-report, self-identification, drug dependency, identity, drug use

Introduction

A foundation of the contemporary criminal justice response to drug use and crime has been to

offer judicially supervised or court-mandated treatment to those offenders with a dependency on

drugs (Cooper, 2003; Freeman, 2001; Freiberg et al., 2016; Kornhauser, 2018; Logan & Link,

2019; Mackinem & Higgins, 2008; Payne, 2008; Shaffer, 2011). Broadly classified as therapeutic

jurisprudence (Hora et al., 1998), this prioritization of treatment is supported by decades of

research which has shown that incarceration rarely rehabilitates the drug-using offender (see, for

example, Chandler et al., 2009; Pearson & Lipton, 1999) nor does it significantly ameliorate the

well-documented correlation between drug use and crime (Bennett et al., 2008; Bennett &

Holloway, 2003, 2009; Brochu et al., 2018; Chaiken & Chaiken, 1990; Makkai & Payne, 2003b;

1Centre for Social Research and Methods, Australian National University, Canberra, Australia

Corresponding Author:

Cameron T. Langfield, Centre for Social Research and Methods, Australian National University, Canberra, Australia.

Email: cameron.langfield@anu.edu.au

952768JODXXX10.1177/0022042620952768Journal of Drug IssuesLangf‌ield and Payne

research-article2020

4 Journal of Drug Issues 51(1)

Wagner & Anthony, 2002; Weatherburn et al., 2000). Key to the success of these therapeutic

approaches has been the growing recognition of drug dependency as a complex phenomenon

(Bergquist et al., 2010; Burr, 1987; McIntosh & McKeganey, 2001; Reed, 1985; Volkow et al.,

2011; Volkow & Li, 2004; Wasilow-Mueller & Erickson, 2001); one that acknowledges the com-

pulsive condition as a social construct that is neither linearly related to the frequency of drug use

nor universal in its manifestation across the offending population (Babor et al., 2007; Gossop

et al., 1995; Volkow et al., 1999, 2011; Volkow & Li, 2004).

While our understanding of dependency has significantly evolved in recent decades, and

while our systems of screening and clinical assessment have matured, still there is a heavy reli-

ance on self-reported dependency as an initial triaging protocol (Freiberg et al., 2016; Logan &

Link, 2019; Payne, 2005, 2006; Payne & Morgan, 2016). Indeed, of the various drug diversion

and drug court programs that operate worldwide, consent and volunteerism are core require-

ments, so in many respects, self-identification remains an important gateway to treatment (see

Freiberg et al., 2016). As a result, some offenders may not be unable to access treatment without

first self-identifying, and some cohorts of offenders may be at greater disadvantage if self-iden-

tification is affected by social and structural factors that condition their drug use experience.

These inequalities demand academic scrutiny.

Dependency as a Gateway to Treatment

For the more than 50 years, criminologists have documented a strong positive correlation between

drug use and crime. The results of this work have been mixed, but the meta-story of this research

is that a majority of offenders in police custody (Bennett et al., 2008; Freeman & Fitzgerald,

2002; Patterson et al., 2018; Voce & Sullivan, 2019) and prison (Makkai & Payne, 2003a, 2003b)

have a history of drug use and community samples of drug users have higher rates of criminal

justice contact than their non–drug-using peers (Anglin & Perrochet, 1998; Anglin & Speckart,

1986, 1988; Stafford & Bums, 2013). Furthermore, within the offending population, rates of

criminal offending are highest among those who are regular or compulsive drug users (Bennett

et al., 2008; Bennett & Holloway, 2005, 2009; Prichard & Payne, 2005), and periods of reduced

drug use or abstinence, whether triggered by treatment or not, are consistently linked to a decline

in criminal participation (French & Zarkin, 1992; Payne, 2005, 2008; Payne & Morgan, 2016;

Rajkumar & French, 1997). Finally, post-release recidivism is highest among those who enter

prison with a dependency on drugs and higher still among those who report an intention to return

to drug use upon their release (Kinner, 2006).

The relative failure of imprisonment as a period of forced abstinence and the high rates of

recidivism among drug-dependent offenders was inspiration for the establishment of the world’s

first drug court in Miami-Dade County, Florida, in the late 1980s. Since then, drug courts have

proliferated internationally (Cooper, 2003; Payne, 2006, 2008; Shannon et al., 2018), and the

guiding principle of therapeutic jurisprudence (Hora et al., 1998; Spencer, 2012) has made a solid

mark on criminal justice systems worldwide. In Australia, the diversion and treatment of drug

users is organized on a continuum (see Wundersitz, 2007 for an overview) from the early inter-

vention and diversion of low-level users to the intensive court-supervised drug court programs

that are offered as a last resort alternative to imprisonment.

For the majority of programs worldwide, participant consent is a core requirement (Payne &

Morgan, 2016) and such consent often requires the offender to volunteer information about their

status as a drug user. Whether an offender is admitted to a drug court is often subject to a com-

prehensive battery of assessment that includes diagnostic screening and clinical interviews, but

still an offender must advise legal counsel of their intention to be treated and their consent to be

diverted. Identifying oneself as “drug-dependent” and “in need of treatment” is, therefore, a nec-

essary precondition for many diversion programs. For this reason, it is essential that we better