TY - JOUR
T1 - Are arrest statistics a valid measure of illicit drug use? The relationship between criminal justice and public health indicators of cocaine, heroin, and marijuana use
AU - Rosenfeld, Richard
AU - Decker, Scott H.
N1 - Funding Information:
* The research reported in this paper was supported by Grant 3-8050-MO-IJ from the National Institute of Justice. Views are those of the authors and do not necessarily represent the position of the U.S. Department of Justice.
PY - 1999
Y1 - 1999
N2 - Several alternative indicators are currently available to researchers, policy makers, and practitioners for gauging levels and patterns of illicit drug use within and across communities. Yet there exists little information that allows reliable comparisons across indicators to determine whether they tell essentially the same story about variation in the prevalence of drug use. In particular, it remains unclear how closely arrest statistics, the leading law enforcement indicator of illicit drug use, correspond to other law enforcement indicators, such as urine tests of jail inmates, or to public health measures, such as emergency departments' and medical examiners' reports. In this paper we assess the relationships between alternative law enforcement and public health indicators of cocaine, heroin, and marijuana use for a sample of large U.S. cities. We find pronounced convergence across measurement systems in cocaine and heroin use, but little convergence for marijuana use. In addition to other research and policy implications, these results increase confidence in the use of arrest data to assess variation across urban areas in cocaine and heroin use.
AB - Several alternative indicators are currently available to researchers, policy makers, and practitioners for gauging levels and patterns of illicit drug use within and across communities. Yet there exists little information that allows reliable comparisons across indicators to determine whether they tell essentially the same story about variation in the prevalence of drug use. In particular, it remains unclear how closely arrest statistics, the leading law enforcement indicator of illicit drug use, correspond to other law enforcement indicators, such as urine tests of jail inmates, or to public health measures, such as emergency departments' and medical examiners' reports. In this paper we assess the relationships between alternative law enforcement and public health indicators of cocaine, heroin, and marijuana use for a sample of large U.S. cities. We find pronounced convergence across measurement systems in cocaine and heroin use, but little convergence for marijuana use. In addition to other research and policy implications, these results increase confidence in the use of arrest data to assess variation across urban areas in cocaine and heroin use.
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=0000612912&partnerID=8YFLogxK
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/citedby.url?scp=0000612912&partnerID=8YFLogxK
M3 - Review article
AN - SCOPUS:0000612912
SN - 0098-261X
VL - 16
SP - 685
EP - 698
JO - Justice System Journal
JF - Justice System Journal
IS - 3
ER -