Criminal justice outcomes of injecting drug use and methamphetamine smoking
February 2022
Staff:
Paul Dietze and Michael Livingston
Other Collaborators:
Professor Lisa Maher (University of NSW), Dr Bernadette Ward (Monash University), Dr Peter Higgs (La Trobe University), Associate Professor Mark A Stoove (Burnet Institute), Dr Jack Stone (University of Bristol), Matthew Hickman (University of Bristol), Professor Margaret Hellard (Burnet Institute), Keith Sutton(Monash University) and Paul Agius (Burnet Institute)
Project description:
Injection drug use and methamphetamine smoking are associated with the majority of illicit drug-related harms and associated costs in Australia.
This project will extend our studies of people who inject drugs and people who smoke methamphetamine through record linkage to social and criminal justice datasets. We will characterise the trajectories of participants through social services (e.g. public housing) and law enforcement systems to provide a comprehensive account of social and criminal justice impacts of injection drug use and methamphetamine use in Australia for the first time.
The project will determine the:
- incidence of key outcomes such as arrest, imprisonment, social housing utilisation and changes to the government benefits participants receive;
- impacts of law enforcement and criminal justice intervention on drug use trajectories and drug-related harm; and
- impacts of key interventions, policies and behaviours on criminal justice outcomes.
Read the related News item in this edition of Connections
