PERTH TOPS DRUG-CRIME RATE

RAMPANT drug abuse among Perth criminals has been underscored in a national
study of lockups in which the East Perth police lockup shows as worst
amphetamine site in Australia.

The latest report of the Drug Use Monitoring in Australia project said
urine tests of criminal suspects at the lockup showed the nation's highest
level of drug abuse.

It also confirmed a reputation for unusually high amphetamine (speed)
abuse, with almost almost 43 per cent of male suspects testing positive.
The national average is 30 per cent.

East Perth had the highest levels of amphetamine abuse of the four lockups
studied in the project for the past two years.

Suspects also recorded the highest rate of cannabis use (64.7 per cent) and
multiple drug use (46.7 per cent).

In total, 78 per cent of male suspects and 82 per cent of female suspects
tested positive to illicit drugs.

The report also suggested the heroin drought may have hit Perth hardest
late last year, when the proportion of suspects testing positive to opiates
dipped below levels recorded when the project began in 1999.

Sixteen per cent of male suspects tested positive to opiates last year,
compared with the national average of 17 per cent.

It also provided an insight into the types of people entangled in crime.

According to 850 surveys completed last year by suspects in the East Perth
lockup, 62 per cent had been arrested before and 23 per cent had been in
jail in the previous 12 months. More than half said they were living
temporarily at someone else's house and 69 per cent were getting welfare
benefits. A quarter held full-time jobs.

Only 20 per cent of the suspects were women but they were, on average, more
likely to be drug-users than men.

Lockups in the project are at Southport, on Gold Coast in Queensland, and
at Parramatta and Bankstown in western Sydney. Two in South Australia and
another in Queensland have joined this year.