A Review of Research on Alcohol and Drug Use, Criminal Behavior, and the Criminal Justice System Response in American Indian and Alaska Native Communities

2010 ◽  
Author(s):  
Darryl S. Wood
Author(s):  
Kevin A. Wright

Nearly everyone sent to prison will one day return to the community. This means that understanding recidivism is of critical importance to members of that community. At the most basic level, recidivism can be defined as “the reversion of an individual to criminal behavior after he or she has been convicted of a prior offense, sentenced, and (presumably) corrected.” Recidivism therefore requires that some sort of involvement with the criminal justice system has taken place, and that then the individual again comes into contact with the system after additional transgressions. Recidivism, in other words, is officially detected, repeat unlawful behavior.


Author(s):  
Jerry Flores

In this chapter, I draw on feminist criminology and research on gender and crime to demonstrate how abuse and neglect in the home led the young women in my study to their first contact with the criminal justice system. I pay attention to how home instability is shaped by gendered, racialized, and class-specific challenges. First, I discuss the multiple types of abuse girls experience in the home. This mistreatment led the young women in my study to begin dating at an early age; this new behavior resulted in more abuse at the hands of family members, who viewed their behavior as inappropriate and a violation of “proper” behavior for young Latinas. As this abuse continued, most of the young women in my study began using controlled substances. Soon, they ran away from home. Once on the street, they experienced a new set of challenges, which included finding housing, staying safe, and avoiding physical and sexual abuse. By this point their initial drug use had usually turned into full-blown drug addiction. Drug use and abuse were key factors contributing to first girls’ arrest.


2021 ◽  
Vol 102 (s2) ◽  
pp. s387-s410
Author(s):  
Joan Sangster

Over the past decade, Aboriginal women’s conflicts with the law and their plight within the penal and child welfare systems have received increasing media and government attention. Framed by the political demands of Native communities for self-government, and fuelled by disillusionment with a criminal justice system that has resolutely failed Native peoples—both as victims of violence and as defendants in the courts—government studies and royal commissions have documented the shocking overincarceration of Native women. At once marginalized, yet simultaneously the focus of intense government interest, Native women have struggled to make their own voices heard in these inquiries. Their testimony often speaks to their profound alienation from Canadian society and its justice system, an estrangement so intense that it is couched in despair. “How can we be healed by those who symbolize the worst experiences of our past?” asked one inmate before the 1990 Task Force on federally sentenced women.2 Her query invokes current Native exhortations for a reinvention of Aboriginal traditions of justice and healing; it also speaks directly to the injuries of colonialism experienced by Aboriginal peoples.


1998 ◽  
Vol 28 (2) ◽  
pp. 495-515 ◽  
Author(s):  
Michael L. Prendergast ◽  
Yih-Ing Hser ◽  
Virginia Gil-Rivas

The purpose of this paper is to examine differences in patterns and consequences of narcotics use among Hispanic and white addicts over time. Data were gathered from admission records and from interviews conducted in 1974–75 and 1985–86 from 323 Hispanic and 212 white narcotics addicts admitted to the California Civil Addict Program in 1962 to 1964. Analyses compared the two groups on narcotics use, incarceration, mortality, and other characteristics at each follow-up point and in terms of drug-use status. Compared with white addicts, Hispanic addicts showed a progression of more persistent and severe narcotics addiction. At each interview point, Hispanics were more likely than whites to be using opiates or to be incarcerated. Comparisons of opiate use at the two interview points showed that Hispanics were less likely than whites to remain abstinent and were more likely to relapse to opiate use. Overall, Hispanics also had greater involvement in the criminal justice system, higher rates of cocaine use, and a higher proportion of deaths due to violence and accidents.


Author(s):  
David S. Kirk ◽  
Andrew V. Papachristos ◽  
Jeffrey Fagan ◽  
Tom R. Tyler

Frustrated by federal inaction on immigration reform, several U.S. states in recent years have proposed or enacted laws designed to stem the flow of illegal immigrants into the United States and to facilitate their removal. An underappreciated implication of these laws is the potential alienation of immigrant communities—even law-abiding, cooperative individuals—from the criminal justice system. The ability of the criminal justice system to detect and sanction criminal behavior is dependent upon the cooperation of the general public, including acts such as the reporting of crime and identifying suspects. Cooperation is enhanced when local residents believe that laws are enforced fairly. In contrast, research reveals that cynicism of the police and the legal system undermines individuals’ willingness to cooperate with the police and engage in the collective actions necessary to socially control crime. By implication, recent trends toward strict local enforcement of immigration laws may actually undercut public safety by creating a cynicism of the law in immigrant communities. Using data from a 2002 survey of New York City residents, this study explores the implications of perceived injustices perpetrated by the criminal justice system for resident willingness to cooperate with the police in immigrant communities.


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