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Effects of Heroin Prescription on Police Contacts among Drug-Addicts

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Abstract

Switzerland's programme of opiate prescription to drug-addicts has been thoroughly evaluated under many aspects. The results published so far on the final findings, covering the programme's first year of operation, have focused on self-reported delinquent acts and victimisation reported during interviews. This article addresses these two issues. How did police recorded crime develop over time, taking the offence type into account? Have these trends been affected by changing police control over the addicts participating in the programme? In other words, has an eventual drop been produced by less strict crime reporting (or recording) practice for programme participants, rather than by lower crime rates among this group? The analysis reported here confirms the results based on self-reported delinquency and victimisation data. According to police files, the drop in serious property offences was indeed comparable. As it turned out, this drop is not due to reduced probabilities of the police recording offences committed by programme participants after their admission to heroin prescription.

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REFERENCES

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. School of Forensic Science and Criminology, University of Lausanne, Switzerland, Place du Chateau 3, 1015, Lausanne, Switzerland

    Martin Killias, Marcelo Aebi & Denis Ribeaud

Authors
  1. Martin Killias
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  2. Marcelo Aebi
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  3. Denis Ribeaud
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Killias, M., Aebi, M. & Ribeaud, D. Effects of Heroin Prescription on Police Contacts among Drug-Addicts. European Journal on Criminal Policy and Research 6, 433–438 (1998). https://doi.org/10.1023/A:1008651531163

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1023/A:1008651531163

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