Drug consumption is a societal, global, and seemingly unsolvable problem. Its social and economic impacts on society are catastrophic. Predominantly, drug use devastates a person on two levels:

  1. As a socialised person, a member of society, a family member, and a member of a work team, where in front of family and friends one turns into a person who is irresponsible, unreliable, does not keep promises and commitments, and prefers drug-using acquaintances over work and family.
  2. As a person who has developed a value system, which under the influence of an addictive substance disintegrates, changes, and turns away from rejecting traditional values toward accepting new values that are in line with drug-user society.

A socially unacceptable fact is also that the consumption of addictive substances is a very expensive matter. Not every user is financially secure enough to cover their use from legal income. On the contrary, many users of addictive substances come from socially weak groups, such as students, the unemployed, or low-income earners.

We have to state that many users of addictive substances are forced to finance their drug use through unlawful activity. It is often the last option to secure enough income to be enough even for buying drugs. Unlawful activity takes many forms. The least frequent is economic criminal activity (embezzlement, breach of duty in managing another person’s property, etc.). This criminal activity can be carried out only by people active in administration and in separate functional posts. But many young drug users have lost these positions because of their personal decline (unreliability, failure to meet obligations, skipping attendance at the workplace, not fulfilling tasks, etc.).

Many young people—addicts—have left the work process, or never entered it, so obtaining drugs becomes a very demanding activity for them, which they can sustain only through criminal activity. Young men—drug addicts—commit property crimes, especially burglaries of motor vehicles, cellars, and storage facilities. These people take anything that has any value. Their targets include car stereos, laptops, cameras, and other devices that can be sold through intermediaries. The thieves do not disdain even spare wheels, but also cash or the owner’s identification documents. Girls commit criminal activity as co-offenders in thefts when they are in a “group” with boys. A common form of crime is organised prostitution.

Monitoring the development of alcohol and drug consumption is very complex. Most drug users, in the initial stage of consumption, do not admit their drug dependence. Specialist workers, whether they are social workers or health-care workers, come into contact with drug users only at the stage when their drug use becomes unmanageable.

Fig. 1 Criminal activity propensity by years

In Fig. 1 we can see a graphical representation of the absolute measure—the criminal propensity in the Bratislava Region for the years 1997 to 2009. In 2006, there was a change in monitoring criminal propensity due to the entry into force of the new Criminal Code and a new methodology at the same time. To the greatest detriment, and I consider this to be a methodological mistake, there is no conversion bridge between the old and new methodologies of monitoring criminal propensity. In spite of this, the time series created by the moving-average method, the time estimation of parameter values by linear and nonlinear regression (where parameter estimation and polynomial modelling of the third degree show a higher model reliability value), indicates a trend of increasing criminal propensity in the Bratislava Region.

Fig. 2 Forecast of criminal activity propensity in the Bratislava Region

Let us now turn to Table 1, which shows criminal propensity in absolute terms for the years 1997 to 2009. Several findings can be read from the table. Above all, in the period up to 2006 it is possible to see that the overwhelming part of crime consists of theft and burglaries. After 2006, criminal activity is already monitored precisely according to sections of the Criminal Code. Here we find theft as such under § 212. If we take average values and assume that burglaries and other thefts are monitored under § 212 of the Criminal Code, then this property criminal activity accounts for up to 65% of total criminality. Let us return to the people who commit such criminal activity. Drug addicts most often commit property offences, namely theft, for the following reasons:

  1. simplicity of execution — it is fairly easy to steal a car stereo, purse, or another valuable item from a car; it requires no specialised expertise and no special tools
  2. low sentencing range. Most stolen items do not reach twice the value of the minimum wage, so in case of being “caught” they face only a sanction for committing an offence. In the case of repeated conduct or greater damage, there is still only the possibility of a suspended sentence.
  3. Even in the case of stealing a more expensive item, the maximum penalty is two years’ imprisonment, i.e., in practice one year.

A problem in monitoring this criminal activity in relation to drug use is that if we compare average values of criminal propensity—“theft” and average criminal propensity under the influence of drugs—we find that only 0.19% of offenders who commit theft use addictive substances. This, however, contradicts practice, where it is generally known that the majority of drug users in problematic consumption situations “earns themselves” precisely through property criminal activity. Where, then, is the error? Primarily in the data collection methodology, in a lack of concern for offenders’ real trajectories, and in the absence of social work in this area.

Table 1 Criminal activity propensity in years

The agencies that investigate and uncover criminal activity do not concern themselves with the motive that leads people to offending. The main effort is focused on identifying the offence, finding the culprit, punishing the culprit. Some persons are chronically known to the police, they know them, and are aware of their “specialist orientation” in criminal activity (specialisation in car stereos, spare wheels, airbags, or items owned by victims—laptops, cameras, GPS devices, etc.).

Fig. 3 Share of theft in overall criminality

This lack of attentiveness has many negative aspects. Above all, indifference to identifying the causes of criminal conduct has the following consequences:

  1. increasing recidivism—an addict will continue offending even after punishment. Even after court, where he was punished with a suspended sentence, he is capable of stealing.
  2. addressing the consequence rather than the cause of criminal offending, because what must primarily be addressed here is drug dependence, not punishment.
  3. monitoring the causes of criminal conduct has a major informational function, because drug addicts can tolerate living for a fairly long period without legal work through this petty criminal conduct, while this develops into very serious criminal activity.
  4. criminal activity is a serious socio-pathological phenomenon, even though trivialising it leads to serious criminal offending.
  5. by not carrying out social work we miss data collection on socially excluded citizens who need specific social intervention (and there are such people in Bratislava as well). As Loran defines, “social workers have for several years been taking into their caseload socially and materially deprived Roma clients” (Loran, 2010, p. 49).

Conclusion

Monitoring criminal propensity in detailed breakdown is an excellent methodological tool for analysing the type and impact of criminal activity on society. For full perfection, however, one essential step is still missing—the close cooperation with youth and adult probation services, which can professionally provide social diagnostics of offenders and propose and implement an appropriate, effective, and professional social intervention to eliminate these socio-pathological phenomena. Let us not wait until these “petty offenders” make their way toward “serious offenders,” where it may already be too late.

Author: Ing. Anton Doktorov, PhD. University of Health and Social Work of St. Elizabeth

List of bibliographic references

[1] DOKTOROV, A. - HOLOTŇÁKOVÁ, D. 1998. Drogy v školách. In: Pedagogická revue 1998, Január 98,
[2] DOKTOROV, A. – HAŠKOVÁ, A. 2005. Sledovanie možností optimalizácie vzdelávacích štruktúr. In: Zborník z konferencie Kultúra – priestor interdisciplinárneho myslenia. PF UKF, 2005, s. 210-251. ISBN 80-8050-833-X
[3] LORAN, T. 2010. Andragogicko-sociálne dilemy prípravy exkludovaných pre potreby vedomostnej spoločnosti. In: Pedagogická revue 1-2/2010, ročník 62, strany 42-54, Štátny pedagogický ústav, Bratislava, ISSN 1335-1982
[4] Interné materiály policajného zboru SR za Bratislavský kraj.

The lecture was presented at the international scientific conference Applied Ethics in Social Work and Other Helping Professions, which was held on 20–21 October 2010 in Piešťany and was published in the proceedings of this conference: MÁTEL, A. – SCHAVEL, M. – MÜHLPACHR, P. – ROMAN, T. 2010. Applied Ethics in Social Work and Other Helping Professions. Proceedings of the International Scientific Conference. Bratislava : VŠZaSP sv. Alžbety. 413 s. ISBN 978-80-89271-89-4.