Pubdate: Sun, 15 May 1999
Source: International Herald-Tribune
Copyright: International Herald Tribune 1999
Contact:  http://www.iht.com/
Author:  Christopher S. Wren, New York Times Service

AS IN AMERICA, DRUGS DRIVE CRIME IN U.K.

NEW YORK---Illegal drugs drive crime in England just as they do in the
United States, says a two-nation survey that challenges assumptions
that addicted criminals are a particularly American-problem.

The report, released Friday, found that among suspects arrested in
England 55 percent said they had used a psychoactive drug in the prior
three days. That is slightly nlore than in America, where just under
half a comparable sampling said the same thing.

The type of crime and of drug use differs between the
countries.

"We don't have the problem with gun-related violence*" Malcolm Ramsay,
principal research officer for the Research Development and
Statistics Directorate of the British Home Office, said in a telephone
interview from London.

In England, Mr. Ramsay said, "robbery and burglary are rare as a means
of financing the purchase of drugs." Shoplifting accounted for
one-third of the arrests of the English heroin users sampled, Mr.
Ramsay said.

The report said 35 percent of the Americans`arrested were charged with
personal crimes of violence like robbery compared with 16 percent of
the English. The Americans were also more likely to be arrested for
drug or alcohol offenses.

A sample of 839 people arrested in England showed that they appeared
twice as likely as their American counterparts to have used heroin and
amphetamines. But more than 40 percent of 4,470 people arrestod in
five American cities tested positive for crack or powder cocaine,
compared with 9 percent of the English.

The 60-page report is the first under a program that began last year.
The National Institute of Justice, the research arm of the United
States Justice Department, has used such statistics since 1987 to try
to measure links between crime and drugs in the United States.

The director of the institute, Jeremy Travis, said adopting the same
research methodology made possible a true comparison between patterns
of arrests in both countries.

"It's a window into the world of offender behavior so we can
understand drug use, public health issues and socioeconomic factors
related to crime," Mr. Travis said.

Because of the high cocaine use, 68 percent of the suspected criminals
sampled in the United States were found using an illicit drug,
compared with 59 percent of the English sample. But the English
admitted using more kinds of drugs than the Americans.

The findings were based on urine tests, as well as the suspects'
statements.
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