Drugs and the Justice System - Drugs And Alcohol Play A Major Rolein Arrests

As estimated by the FBI in its annual Crime in the United States report, nearly 13.7 million total arrests took place in 2003; about 1.7 million people, or about 12%, were arrested for drug abuse violations. (See Table 5.2; Table 5.3 breaks these arrests down by region of the country.) Driving under the influence accounted 1.4 million (or 10.5%) of total arrests; drunkenness, 548,616 (4%); and liquor law violations, 612,079 (4.5%). These 4.3 million arrests accounted for 31% of all arrests. In addition, arrests for disorderly conduct (639,371), vagrancy (28,948), and vandalism (273,431) often involved drug and alcohol abuse.

TABLE 5.2
Estimated arrests, 2003
SOURCE: Table 29. Estimated Number of Arrests: United States, 2003, in Crime in the United States, 2003, U.S. Department of Justice, Federal Bureau of Investigation, October 27, 2004, http://www.fbi.gov/ucr/03cius.htm (accessed February 14, 2005)

Totala	13,639,479
Murder and nonnegligent manslaughter	13,190
Forcible rape	26,350
Robbery	107,553
Aggravated assault	449,933
Burglary	290,956
Larceny-theft	1,145,074
Motor vehicle theft	152,934
Arson	16,163
Violent crimeb	597,026
Property crimeb	1,605,127
Other assaults	1,246,698
Forgery and counterfeiting	111,823
Fraud	299,138
Embezzlement	16,826
Stolen property; buying, receiving, possessing	126,775
Vandalism	273,431
Weapons; carrying, possessing, etc.	167,972
Prostitution and commercialized vice	75,190
Sex offenses (except forcible rape and prostitution)	91,546
Drug abuse violations	1,678,192
Gambling	10,954
Offenses against the family and children	136,034
Driving under the influence	1,448,148
Liquor laws	612,079
Drunkenness	548,616
Disorderly conduct	639,371
Vagrancy	28,948
All other offenses	3,665,543
Suspicion	7,163
Curfew and loitering law violations	136,461
Runaways	123,581
aDoes not include suspicion.
bViolent crimes are offenses of murder, forcible rape, robbery, and aggravated assault. Property crimes are offenses of burglary, larceny-theft, motor vehicle theft, and arson.

According to the FBI, total arrests were about 0.5% lower than two years earlier in 2001, but drug arrests rose nearly 6% over that two-year span. They also increased as a percentage of all arrests, from 11.6% in 2001 to 12.3% in 2003. In 2003 more people were arrested for drug and alcohol violations than were arrested for murder, rape, robbery, aggravated assault, burglary, theft, car theft, arson, forgery, fraud, embezzlement, prostitution and vice, gambling, offenses against family and children (usually domestic violence), and curfew/loitering-law violations combined.

Data for these two years are the continuation of a longer trend. (See Figure 5.2.) The official crime rate, which was climbing through 1989, began to decline slowly, if not uniformly, after that year. Drug arrests also dropped at first, but then resumed their upward direction between 1991 and 1992 and have been rising since that time.