Abstract
IN an important paper on the problem of alcohol and drug addiction in relation to crime, published in the October issue of the British Journal of Inebriety, Dr. W. Norwood East, formerly H.M. Commissioner of Prisons, discusses the relation of parental alcoholism and drug addiction to crime, alcoholism in the individual as a cause of crime, the medical and legal aspects of alcoholic crime, and the treatment of criminal alcoholics and drug addicts. He illustrates the insignificant part played by drug addiction as a cause of crime, at least in Great Britain, by the fact that in 1937, when the number of drug addicts known to the central authority was only 620, not more than 31 persons were dealt with under the Probation of Offenders Act, or fined or imprisoned for offences against the Dangerous Drugs Act. Dr. East further points out that while every practical criminologist will attach some importance to the association of alcoholism and crime, it is easy to over-emphasize the connexion, and in support of this contention brings forward statistics from various prisons showing that familial or individual alcoholism is a much less frequent cause of crime than was formerly supposed. While allowing that the general medical treatment of alcoholism and drug addiction may be supplemented by psychotherapy in suitable cases, Dr. East asserts that this method is apt to be disappointing, and that he does not know of any impressive series of figures illustrating the success of such treatment.
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Alcohol and Crime. Nature 144, 703 (1939). https://doi.org/10.1038/144703b0
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/144703b0