TY - JOUR
T1 - What's drugs got to do with it? Examining the relationship between drug onset and duration with criminal outcomes in an African American cohort
AU - Green, Kerry M.
AU - Doherty, Elaine E.
AU - Ensminger, Margaret E.
N1 - Funding Information:
This study uses data from the Woodlawn project, which was designed and executed by Dr. Sheppard Kellam and Dr. Margaret Ensminger and funded by the National Institute of Drug Abuse and other NIH institutes through the years. We are especially grateful to these original researchers, Woodlawn study participants, Woodlawn Advisory Board, and all of the researchers who have been instrumental in creating and maintaining this rich data set. We thank NIDA (DA042748) and NIA (AG057673) for funding this work.
Funding Information:
This work is funded by the National Institutes of Health grants R01DA042748 (Green, PI) and R01AG057673 (Green, PI). NIDA and NIA had no role in the study design, collection, analysis or interpretation of the data, writing the manuscript, or the decision to submit the paper for publication.
Publisher Copyright:
© 2020 Elsevier Ltd
PY - 2020/11
Y1 - 2020/11
N2 - Background: The association of drug use onset and duration with criminal careers has rarely been studied over the life course among African Americans, who are disproportionately impacted by the criminal justice system. Methods: This study uses data from a community cohort of urban African Americans, first assessed at age 6 (n = 1242) and followed into midlife. Data come from both self-reports (n = 1053 in adulthood) and official crime records (n = 1217). Regression analyses among those who used marijuana, cocaine, and/or heroin and had complete arrest data (n = 614) assess the association between adolescent vs. adult initiation, short vs. long duration of use, and their interaction with the outcomes of arrest, incarceration, and criminal career length, as well as meeting criteria for a drug use disorder. Results: Findings show that onset and duration are highly related, but when independent effects of duration and onset are assessed, only duration is a statistically significant predictor of all four crime outcomes, as well as a predictor of meeting criteria for a drug use disorder in adjusted regression models. Associations of duration with arrests held for all crime types (i.e., drug, property, violence). Adolescent vs. adult drug onset only predicted meeting lifetime criteria for a drug use disorder. The interaction of onset and duration was not statistically significant in any models. No appreciable differences were observed in gender specific models. Discussion: Findings suggest that shortening drug use duration may have a greater impact on reducing the association of drug use with crime for African Americans than delaying onset.
AB - Background: The association of drug use onset and duration with criminal careers has rarely been studied over the life course among African Americans, who are disproportionately impacted by the criminal justice system. Methods: This study uses data from a community cohort of urban African Americans, first assessed at age 6 (n = 1242) and followed into midlife. Data come from both self-reports (n = 1053 in adulthood) and official crime records (n = 1217). Regression analyses among those who used marijuana, cocaine, and/or heroin and had complete arrest data (n = 614) assess the association between adolescent vs. adult initiation, short vs. long duration of use, and their interaction with the outcomes of arrest, incarceration, and criminal career length, as well as meeting criteria for a drug use disorder. Results: Findings show that onset and duration are highly related, but when independent effects of duration and onset are assessed, only duration is a statistically significant predictor of all four crime outcomes, as well as a predictor of meeting criteria for a drug use disorder in adjusted regression models. Associations of duration with arrests held for all crime types (i.e., drug, property, violence). Adolescent vs. adult drug onset only predicted meeting lifetime criteria for a drug use disorder. The interaction of onset and duration was not statistically significant in any models. No appreciable differences were observed in gender specific models. Discussion: Findings suggest that shortening drug use duration may have a greater impact on reducing the association of drug use with crime for African Americans than delaying onset.
KW - Criminal justice system involvement
KW - Drug use initiation
KW - Drug use trajectory
KW - Longitudinal data
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U2 - 10.1016/j.addbeh.2020.106539
DO - 10.1016/j.addbeh.2020.106539
M3 - Article
C2 - 32688227
AN - SCOPUS:85088017367
VL - 110
JO - Addictive Behaviors
JF - Addictive Behaviors
SN - 0306-4603
M1 - 106539
ER -