Variations in Criminal Patterns Among Narcotic Addicts in Baltimore and New York City, 1983-1984 (ICPSR 9586)

Version Date: May 15, 2013

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Principal Investigator(s):
David N. Nurco; Thomas E. Hanlon; Timothy W. Kinlock; Evelyn Slaght

https://doi.org/10.3886/ICPSR09586.v2

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Summary

This data collection was undertaken to develop a typology of narcotic addicts according to the kind, frequency, and seriousness of their crimes and to identify the most serious criminal offenders, thereby determining which individuals were best suited to rehabilitation. The following questions are addressed by the data: (1) What "types" of narcotic addicts can be distinguished in terms of their criminal behavior? Which of these types are amenable to rehabilitation? (2) At what time during their addiction careers do addicts commit the most crime? Do narcotic addicts "mature" out of addiction? (3) What is the relationship between individuals' involvement in crime prior to addiction and their criminal activity and drug use over their addiction career? (4) Which demographic, personality, or other factors are associated with serious crime committed during periods of narcotic addiction? (5) What are the contributions of situational and dispositional factors to the relationship between addiction and crime? Part 1 of the collection details the subjects' addiction careers, the age they first used various drugs, the age they first became addicted to narcotics, the amount of time they were addicted/not addicted to narcotics, and the total length of their addiction careers. Part 2 contains variables generated by cluster analysis, including cluster assignment or "type." Part 3 includes the educational, occupational, and arrest histories of the subjects, as well as the drug use and arrest histories of their families. The Part 4 file consists of Minnesota Multiphasic Personality Inventory and Raven Progressive Matrix scores. The frequency and types of crime that subjects committed during the preaddiction period comprise Part 5, while the frequency and nature of drug use during the preaddiction period comprise Part 6. Parts 7 and 8 contain crime variables and drug use variables, respectively, across all nonaddiction periods. Finally, Part 9 contains data characterizing crime across all addiction periods, and Part 10 contains variables regarding drug use across total addiction periods.

Citation

Nurco, David N., Hanlon, Thomas E., Kinlock, Timothy W., and Slaght, Evelyn. Variations in Criminal Patterns Among Narcotic Addicts in Baltimore and New York City, 1983-1984. Inter-university Consortium for Political and Social Research [distributor], 2013-05-15. https://doi.org/10.3886/ICPSR09586.v2

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Funding

United States Department of Justice. Office of Justice Programs. National Institute of Justice (86-IJ-CX-0030)

Subject Terms

Geographic Coverage

Distributor(s)

Inter-university Consortium for Political and Social Research
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Time Period(s)

1983-05 -- 1984-04

Date of Collection

1983-05 -- 1984-04

Data Collection Notes

  1. The data are organized by topic into a series of ten data files. Each file contains data for 250 cases, with the exception of Parts 4, 7, and 8, in which some cases have been deleted because data are missing for the entire case.

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Sample

Data were collected from interviews with 250 male narcotic addicts. These men were consecutively admitted as outpatients to methadone treatment centers in Baltimore and New York City between May 1983 and April 1984. The Baltimore sample was drawn from the outpatient population of five treatment centers. The New York sample was drawn from a single large-capacity center. Individuals who experienced a first period of narcotic addiction at least two years before the interview and who were at least 25 years of age were eligible for the study.

Universe

Male narcotic addicts in Baltimore and New York City.

Data Source

MINNESOTA MULTIPHASIC PERSONALITY INVENTORY, RAVEN PROGRESSIVE MATRICES, and personal interviews

Data Type(s)

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Original Release Date

1991-10-23

Version History

2018-02-15 The citation of this study may have changed due to the new version control system that has been implemented. The previous citation was:
  • Nurco, David N., Thomas E. Hanlon, Timothy W. Kinlock, and Evelyn Slaght. Variations in Criminal Patterns Among Narcotic Addicts in Baltimore and New York City, 1983-1984. ICPSR09586-v2. Ann Arbor, MI: Inter-university Consortium for Political and Social Research [distributor], 1991-10-23. http://doi.org/10.3886/ICPSR09586

2013-05-15 Incomplete SAS transport (xpt) file for dataset 4 was replaced with SAS CPORT (stc).

2006-03-30 File CB9586.ALL.PDF was removed from any previous datasets and flagged as a study-level file, so that it will accompany all downloads.

2005-11-04 On 2005-03-14 new files were added to one or more datasets. These files included additional setup files as well as one or more of the following: SAS program, SAS transport, SPSS portable, and Stata system files. The metadata record was revised 2005-11-04 to reflect these additions.

2002-06-27 The data files were converted from card image format to logical record length, and the codebook was converted to PDF format. Data definition statements for both SAS and SPSS were added.

1991-10-23 ICPSR data undergo a confidentiality review and are altered when necessary to limit the risk of disclosure. ICPSR also routinely creates ready-to-go data files along with setups in the major statistical software formats as well as standard codebooks to accompany the data. In addition to these procedures, ICPSR performed the following processing steps for this data collection:

  • Created variable labels and/or value labels.
  • Standardized missing values.
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Notes

  • The public-use data files in this collection are available for access by the general public. Access does not require affiliation with an ICPSR member institution.