One in two ‘typical’ drug traffickers convicted in NSW between 2000 and 2023 will have no further contact with the criminal justice system after release, according to an Australian-first study published in The International Journal of Drug Policy.
The authors also found that people convicted of trafficking heroin or amphetamine-type substances are more likely to commit further offences than those convicted of cannabis, ecstasy or cocaine trafficking.
While there is a high degree of persistence in crime, very little of this involves drug trafficking, with fewer than 5% being reconvicted for drug trafficking offences.
“In our study, most drug-related reoffences were for possessing an illegal drug or driving under the influence of drugs, with very few returning to drug trafficking” said lead author Professor Donald Weatherburn from the National Drug and Alcohol Research Centre (NDARC) at UNSW Sydney.
“The standout feature of the offenders in our study, both before and after their first conviction for drug trafficking, was their involvement in more than 26 different categories of crime other than drug trafficking.”
What did the study show?
The findings provide a valuable insight into the criminal careers of drug traffickers and are consistent with results from prior ethnographic studies of this crime.
Professor Weatherburn’s team found that the most common offender—a male aged 30-39, first convicted between 19 and 35 years for trafficking heroin in a non-commercial quantity, and who has a ‘moderate’ level of illicit drug and alcohol use—had a ‘cure rate’ of 53%.
This dropped rapidly to 31% among otherwise identical offenders but with three or more prior convictions.
They also found that those convicted of trafficking heroin or amphetamine-type substances had the highest offending rates; ecstasy and cocaine traffickers had the lowest offending rates; and cannabis traffickers had an offending rate somewhere in the middle.
Finally, while drug offences accounted for a quarter of all reoffences, these mostly involved possession of illegal drugs (16.4% of all reoffences).
In contrast, non-commercial and commercial drug trafficking accounted for just 3.8% and 0.9% of reoffences, respectively. Other drug reconvictions of note were for illicit drug cultivating (1.4%) and licit drug offences (1.1%).
Professor Weatherburn said the study raised two important questions for future research.
“The first is whether those involved in drug trafficking in Australia rely on it as a primary source of income or as one of several income-generating criminal activities they switch between in the course of a criminal career,” he said.
“The second question is why there are such marked differences in the risk, speed and frequency of offending among traffickers of different drugs.”
How was the study conducted?
The authors used data from 30,020 cases of offenders convicted for drug trafficking in NSW between 2000 and 2023, drawn from the reoffending database maintained by the NSW Bureau of Crime Statistics and Research.
The cases examined were limited to those where the offence involved trafficking in either amphetamine-type substances, opioids, cocaine, ecstasy, or cannabis, with a focus on the characteristics that affect the risk and frequency of reoffending.
A limitation of the study is that, unlike ethnographic evidence, the data presented provides no insights into the psychological and social factors that draw people into, keep them involved in, and/or prompt them to leave drug trafficking.
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