This paper mainly focuses on the activities of the informal drug market in Brazil and the social and cultural changes that accompany it at the local level. Therefore, the intentions or consequences ...of the Brazilian government's law enforcement policies and techniques are not discussed. It is sufficient to say that the repression of the drug trade results in drug scarcity, which in turn raises the price and affects the purity of the merchandise. The question that remains to be comprehensively discussed is how the effects of poverty and accelerated urbanization and immigration are linked with institutional mechanisms and the presence of networks of organized crime. Although poverty and accelerated urbanization are clearly connected with the results and causes of exclusion, organized crime crosses all social classes and has bonds with organized legal business.
A study draws together the economics of crime and recidivism literatures to explore the determinants of recidivism among drug offenders in Florida. The study implies that drug offenders appear to ...respond to the incentives and constraints created by the criminal justice system. The size of the police force in their jurisdiction of residence provides a significant general deterrence. Furthermore, imprisonment is much more likely to deter recidivim for drug crimes than is probation. In addition, opportunity costs appear to matter. It is concluded that economic theory of crime can appropriately be applied to drug criminals. However, since drug offenders who commit other crimes are more likely to recidivate than other drug offenders, the study also implies that it may be appropriate to consider drug offenders who are not committing other crimes separately in empirical modes of criminal decision-making.
Although recent research has shown that drug abuse treatment reduces drug use and criminal activity in some clients, the impact of treatment on clients' post‐treatment labor market behavior is ...relatively unknown. This study uses data from a longitudinal survey to analyze annual legal and illegal earnings for 2,420 drug abusers. The analysis focuses on two different time intervals—one year before entering a drug abuse treatment program and one year after leaving the same program. It describes client characteristics, labor market variables, and treatment history, and estimates the effects of length of time in treatment on post‐treatment earnings. The regression analysis shows that length of time in treatment had a positive (negative) and statistically significant impact on real legal (illegal) earnings following treatment for methadone and residential clients, but the magnitude was small; accounting for possible selection bias had little effect on the results. Although residential clients experienced the largest relative changes in earnings outcomes, simply comparing the direct cost of residential treatment with the benefits from improved legal earnings and lower illegal earnings suggests that additional residential treatment is not cost‐beneficial.
Few people would question the desirability of minimizing the use of drugs among minors. The use of random, suspicionless drug testing of school athletes as a means to achieve this end is more open to ...question. Not only does this policy invade the privacy of a group of students who are relatively unlikely to use drugs, but it also discourages athletic participation and may actually lead to an increase in overall drug use. Even in those cases where the adoption of such testing leads to a reduction in overall drug use, compensating behavior by student athletes guarantees that the reduction in use will be smaller, perhaps much smaller, than expected. The policy of drug testing high school athletes unambiguously increases the variance of drug use in the student population: use falls among the athletes who continue to participate in sports but increases among the athletes who quit the team and revert to the higher use levels of their non-athlete peers.
U radu su prikazani rezultati istraživanja učestalosti konzumacije cigareta, alkohola i droga među srednjoškolskom populacijom te njihove povezanosti sa školskim izostancima. Analizirane su razlike u ...čestini konzumiranja s obzirom na spol i dob. Pokazalo se da nema značajne razlike u konzumaciji cigareta s obzirom na spol učenika, a u konzumaciji alkohola i droga postoji statistički značajna razlika. Mladići konzumiraju alkohol i drogu znatno češće u odnosu na djevojke. Iako neka istraživanja pokazuju da stariji učenici češće konzumiraju cigarete, naše istraživanje pokazuje da nema značajne razlike s obzirom na dob ispitanika, a postoji statistički značajna razlika u čestini konzumacije alkohola i droga. Kako se moglo i očekivati, stariji učenici češće konzumiraju alkohol i drogu. Pokazalo se da učenici koji više izostaju s nastave više piju alkohol, puše i uzimaju drogu. Postoji povezanost ne samo s neopravdanim već i s opravdanim izostancima, što najvjerojatnije upućuje na to da neki učenici uspijevaju opravdati dio sati koji su zapravo neopravdani sati. Konzumacija može biti i razlog i posljedica školskih izostanaka, a u ovom radu riječ je o konzumaci kao posljedici izostanaka.
