Assessing the concordance between illicit drug laws on the books and drug law enforcement: Comparison of three states on the continuum from "decriminalised" to "punitive"
Assessing the concordance between illicit drug laws on the books and drug law enforcement: Comparison of three states on the continuum from "decriminalised" to "punitive"
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DOI：
10.1016/j.drugpo.2016.12.013
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发表时间：
2017-03-01
影响因子：
4.4
通讯作者：
Hughes, Caitlin E.
中科院分区：
文献类型：
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作者：
Belackova, Vendula;Ritter, Alison;Hughes, Caitlin E.
目的：不同司法管辖区的禁毒法律不同，执法实践也不同。这项研究从惩罚性的角度探讨了将毒品法归类为“成文法”的可行性，以及在跨国比较和一段时间内它们与“实践法”的一致性程度。方法：对捷克共和国、新南威尔士州(AU)和佛罗里达州(美国)关于大麻和其他毒品犯罪的“成文法”进行分析，以建立这三个州之间的顺序关系。评估“实践中的法律”的指标涵盖2002至2013年间的警察(逮捕)和法院(判刑)活动。结果：捷克的禁毒法律最宽松，佛罗里达州最严厉，新南威尔士州介于两者之间。我们审查了毒品逮捕和监禁的“实践法律”指标，发现人口调整后的案件数量和被判处监禁的人数符合“法律”的分类，但平均刑期和被判处监禁的法院案件的百分比则不符合。尽管捷克共和国和新南威尔士州确立了非刑事化，但随着时间的推移，对各自罪行的刑事逮捕人数有所增加。结论：尽管一些指标的“实践中的法律”与毒品法律的顺序分类一致，但一些“实践中的法律”的指标似乎独立于所述的毒品法律而运作。这对药物政策分析具有重大影响，意味着研究不应假设它们是可互换的，而应在设计研究时分别考虑它们。(C)2016爱思唯尔B.V.保留所有权利。
Aims: Variations in drug laws, as well as variations in enforcement practice, exist across jurisdictions. This study explored the feasibility of categorising drug laws "on the books" in terms of their punitiveness, and the extent of their concordance with "laws in practice" in a cross-national comparison and over time.Methods: "Law on the books", classified with respect to both cannabis and other drug offences in the Czech Republic, NSW (AU) and Florida (USA) were analysed in order to establish an ordinal relationship between the three states. Indicators to assess the "laws in practice" covered both police (arrests) and court (sentencing) activity between 2002 and 2013. Parametric and non-parametric tests of equality of means and tests of stationarity were used to examine the concordance between the ordinal categorisation of "laws on the books" and the level of enforcement activity ("laws in practice").Results: The Czech Republic had the most lenient drug laws; Florida had the most punitive and NSW was in-between. Examining the indicators of "laws in practice" for drug arrests and imprisonment, we found that the population adjusted number of cases presented at courts and the number receiving sentences for imprisonment were concordant with categorisation of "laws on the books", but the average sentence length and percentage of court cases sentenced to prison were not. Despite the decriminalisation established in the Czech Republic and NSW, increase in criminal arrests for the respective crimes over time was observed.Conclusions: While some indicators of "laws in practice" were concordant with the ordinal categorisation of drug laws, several indicators of "laws in practice" appeared to operate independently from the drug laws as stated. This has significant implications for drug policy analysis and means that research should not assume they are interchangeable and should consider each separately when designing research. (C) 2016 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.