DEBATE ON CRIME LINK

HEROIN use and crime are linked but experts disagree how, according to a
bulletin from the NSW Bureau of Crime Statistics and Research.

Heroin users who came to attention through the courts or drug clinics
typically engaged in high rates of drug-dealing, robbery, burglary, forgery
and shop-lifting, the study said.

The popular belier was that heroin users committed property crimes to
finance their drug addiction.

But there were two alternative explanations. One suggested that property
criminals were more likely to become dependent heroin users.

Another view suggested that crime and drug use had common causes such as
social disadvantage and a criminal sub-culture which encouraged heroin use
and crime.

The explanations were given in the bureau's 1996 study of the heroin
substitute, methadone, as a crime control measure.

At least half of treated heroin users were involved in property offences
before they first used the drug. This was especially true of males.

On the other hand, women were more likely to be recruited to heroin by a
heroin-using male sexual partner so that their criminal activities were
more likely to follow their usage.

Studies in California and Baltimore said groups of users reported
committing more crime when heroin was used daily than when they were
abstinent, the bulletin said.

The bulletin said only a small proportion of adults became heroin addicts
but the frequency with which they engaged in crime and their range of crime
affected victims and those whose household insurance had risen to meet the
claims of victims.