Toward a drugs and crime research agenda for the 21st century

For criminal justice practitioners who deal with drugs and crime day in and day out, the reality of the drugs-crime nexus is indisputable. In a manual designed to help police chiefs and sheriffs control drug abuse, the International Association of Chiefs of Police (IACP) stated unequivocally its belief in a significant though complex relationship between drug abusers and criminal offenders. Change one group, IACP proposed, and you change the other: If there is a reduction in the number of people who abuse drugs in your community, there will be a reduction in the commission of certain types of crime in your community. When IACP released its manual more than a decade ago, researchers already were confirming what practitioners believed and documenting the relationship between drugs and crime. Public policy and programs were and continue to be developed on the basis of this knowledge. But although researchers and practitioners alike knew the relationship existed, the nature of that relationship eluded them then and continues to elude them today. To shed light on the drugs-crime link requires research, and the first step is to specify the research topics to be covered. Taking the lead, the National Institute of Justice (NIJ) and the National Institute on Drug Abuse (NIDA) brought together academics and other researchers and asked them to answer three questions: What do we know about drugs and crime, what do we not know, and, most important, what do we need to know? Both agencies see this knowledge not as an end in itself but as a means to accurately define the problem of drugs and crime and promote future research. The agenda for research was developed under NIJ and NIDA sponsorship at a forum held in Washington, D.C., in April 2001. The findings of the Drugs and Crime Research Forum are presented here.