Arrestee Drug Test Results & Recidivism

SPECIFYING THE RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN ARRESTEE DRUG TEST RESULTS

Smith, Douglas A., & Polsenberg, Christina. (1992). Specifying the relationship between arrestee drug test results and recidivism. The Journal of Criminal Law & Criminology, 83(2), 364377.

The abstract accurately described the problem investigated in the study reported in the article. The abstract also identified the major issues relevant to the problem investigated. The abstract, however, did not state the findings of the study reported in the article, nor did the abstract report the conclusions drawn from those findings.

The introduction to the article provided a background discussion on the relationship between the use of proscribed drugs and criminal activity. In this discussion, however, the authors used such terms as "seriousness of drug use," and "criminal behavior," without simultaneously quantifying the terms to enable the read adequately assess the claimed relationships between the terms. In stating the problem that was investigated in the study reported in the article, the authors attempted to link positive drug test results at the time of arrest with future arrests for a different crime by citing the findings of earlier studies. Unfortunately, the cited relationships often included drug use variables that were not clearly identified as positive drug test results obtained at the time of arrest. This clo

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ause their use was found to be higher among arrestees than were other drugs. The maximum use among arrestees of other drugs was threepercent, according to the author's with modal use levels in the onepercent to twopercent range. The authors noted than an exception to this case was marijuana, for which sevenpercent of the arrestee sample tested positive. The authors stated that marijuana use was excluded from the sample data because past research had not shown marijuana to be related to future criminal behavior. Nevertheless, the authors failed to discuss the fact that fewer of the arrestee sample tested positive for PCP (5.6 percent) than tested positive for marijuana (7.0 percent). The authors, thus, left themselves open to the charge that they used other than objective criteria in the selection of sample data, and purposefully excluded data related to arrestee positive testing for marijuana because it would invalidate their predetermined conclusions that positive drug test results at the time of arrest is a valid and reliable indicator of future criminal behavior. There were also other problems with the sample data. First, almost threequarters of the sample (72.6 percent) were male. Second, 92.4 percent of the sampl

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