DOI: 10.3886/icpsr09586.v2
title: Variations in Criminal Patterns Among Narcotic Addicts in Baltimore and New York City, 1983-1984
title: Version 2

description: 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.
description: 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..
description: Datasets: 
 
 DS0: Study-Level Files 
 DS1: Addiction Career Data File 
 DS2: Cluster Assignment Data File 
 DS3: School, Employment, Criminal Justice, and Family 
 DS4: MMPI and Raven Scores 
 DS5: Crime During Preaddiction Period 
 DS6: Drug Use During Preaddiction Periods 
 DS7: Crime Across Nonaddiction Periods 
 DS8: Drug Use Across Nonaddiction Periods 
 DS9: Crime Across Addiction Periods 
 DS10: Drug Use Across Total Addiction Periods
description: 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.
description: Male narcotic addicts in Baltimore and New York City.
description: 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.