Criminal Justice(2008)
The first part of the article discusses the goals international criminal courts have set for themselves. The author believes that these goals are too numerous, that they are often in conflict, and that the courts are not well suited for the achievement of some of them. This situation generates disparity between the courts' aspiration and achievement, a degree of disorientation, and difficulty in assessing the courts' performance. Disillusionment stemming from unfulfilled expectations, and inconsistencies springing from disorientation, are harmful to any system of justice, and especially to international criminal courts whose legitimacy is still fragile.
Criminal Justice(2008)
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In the second part of the article, the author explores ways in which this particular weakness of international criminal justice could be overcome, or at least alleviated. Two main avenues of improvement are recommended. Some proclaimed objectives, the author maintains, should be abandoned or played down, and a goal should be selected as over-arching so that tension among the remaining objectives can be better managed. Having proposed that a didactic function be accorded pride of place, the author then examines several salient problems that this particular choice would entail.
Background: There have been no changes to the statutory penalties for cannabis use in New Zealand for over 35 years and this has attracted some criticism. However, statutory penalties often provide a poor picture of the actual criminal justice outcomes for minor drug offending.
Method: Rates of apprehension, prosecution, conviction and related criminal justice outcomes for the use of cannabis in New Zealand (per 100,000 population) were calculated for 1991-2008. The same measures were calculated (per 1000 last year cannabis users) for 1998, 2001, 2003 and 2006. Trends were tested for using logistic regression with year predicting each measure outcome and with chi-square tests.
Conclusion: There has been a substantial decline in arrests for cannabis use in New Zealand over the past decade and this lead to similar declines in prosecutions and convictions for cannabis use. The decline in convictions for cannabis use was further assisted by the expansion of police diversion to include cannabis use offences. Our findings underline the importance of examining the implementation of law, as well as statutory penalties, when characterising a country's criminal justice approach to minor drug offending.
Background: Tobacco use remains the leading cause of preventable disease and death in the United States and is concentrated among disadvantaged populations, including individuals with a history of criminal justice involvement. However, tobacco use among individuals with a history of criminal justice involvement has been understudied in the United States, and data are needed to inform policy and practice.
Methods: We used data from the 2008-2016 National Survey on Drug Use and Health (unweighted N = 330,130) to examine trends in tobacco use, categories of tobacco use, characteristics of cigarette use, and health care utilization and tobacco use screening among individuals (aged 18-64) with and without a history of criminal justice involvement in the past year. We used multiple logistic and Poisson regression models with predictive margins to provide adjusted prevalence estimates.
Results: The weighted sample in each year was, on average, representative of 8,693,171 individuals with a history of criminal justice involvement in the past year and 182,817,228 individuals with no history of criminal justice involvement in the past year. Tobacco use was significantly more common among individuals with a history of criminal justice involvement compared with individuals with no criminal justice involvement, and disparities increased over time (Difference in adjusted relative differences: - 10.2% [95% CI - 17.7 to - 2.7]). In 2016, tobacco use prevalence was more than two times higher among individuals with a history of criminal justice involvement (62.9% [95% CI 59.9-66.0] vs. 27.6% [95% CI 26.9-28.3]). Individuals with a history of criminal justice involvement who smoked reported a significantly earlier age of cigarette initiation, more cigarettes used per day, and higher levels of nicotine dependence and chronic obstructive pulmonary disease. Individuals with a history of criminal justice involvement were less likely to report an outpatient medical visit in the past year and, among those reporting an outpatient medical visit, were less likely to be asked about tobacco use, but paradoxically, more likely to report being advised to quit.
Conclusions: Novel programs and tobacco control policies are needed to address persistently high rates of tobacco use and reduce cardiovascular morbidity and mortality among individuals with a history of criminal justice involvement.
Tobacco use remains the leading cause of preventable disease and death in the United States and is concentrated among disadvantaged populations, including individuals with a history of criminal justice involvement. However, tobacco use among individuals with a history of criminal justice involvement has been understudied in the United States, and data are needed to inform policy and practice.
Novel programs and tobacco control policies are needed to address persistently high rates of tobacco use and reduce cardiovascular morbidity and mortality among individuals with a history of criminal justice involvement.
Tobacco use remains the leading cause of preventable disease and death in the United States [1]. Cigarette smoking, the most common form of tobacco use, is responsible for over 450,000 deaths and $300 million in economic costs every year [2]. While smoking rates among the general US population have declined substantially over the past several decades, decreases have been disproportionately concentrated among higher-income groups [1, 3]. Therefore, smoking is now highly concentrated among disadvantaged populations, including individuals involved in the criminal justice system (i.e., individuals who have been incarcerated in jail or prison, on probation/parole, or arrested) [4, 5]. High levels of smoking among individuals in prisons contribute to excess age-adjusted mortality and years of potential life lost in this population [6, 7].
We used the most recently available US data to examine trends in tobacco use among individuals with criminal justice involvement in the past year compared with the general population from 2008 to 2016. Among individuals with and without a history of criminal justice involvement, we also compared categories of tobacco use (i.e., cigarettes only, cigars only, smokeless tobacco only, or combination tobacco use), characteristics of cigarette use among individuals who smoke, and health care utilization and tobacco use screening among those with any tobacco use.
In addition, we assessed co-occurring chronic conditions, substance use disorders, and serious mental illness among individuals with and without criminal justice involvement in the past year who reported cigarette use in the past month. We examined chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) and heart disease because they are long-term health consequences of cigarette use [21]. Individuals were asked, in the 2015 and 2016 NSDUH, whether they had ever been told by a doctor or health care professional they had COPD or a heart condition. These same questions were not available in earlier years of the survey. In addition, we examined the prevalence of alcohol use disorders, illicit drug use in the past year (excluding marijuana), marijuana use in the past year, and serious mental illness, which are known to be more prevalent among individuals who smoke [22, 23].
We assessed age, race/ethnicity, and gender of our study population. We controlled for sociodemographic differences between individuals with and without criminal justice involvement in the past year in all analyses.
We used multiple logistic regression and predictive margins to examine the adjusted prevalence of tobacco use in the past month over each study year among individuals with and without criminal justice involvement in the past year.
We used similar regression models to compare tobacco use categories among individuals with tobacco use in the past month, characteristics of cigarette use and health conditions among individuals with cigarette use in the past month, and health care utilization and tobacco use screening among individuals with any category of tobacco use in the past month. These models included data from the 2015 and 2016 NSDUH only. We converted adjusted odds ratios to adjusted prevalence using predictive margins. We used Poisson models with robust standard errors, rather than logistic regression, to measure age of first cigarette use and average cigarettes per day. Key moderators between advice to quit tobacco use and criminal justice involvement were assessed by sequentially incorporating sociodemographic characteristics.
Among individuals who reported cigarette use in the past month, those with criminal justice involvement in the past year reported an earlier age of first cigarette use, use of more cigarettes per day, and higher levels of nicotine dependence compared with those with no criminal justice involvement (Table 2).
Nearly 90% of individuals with a history of criminal justice involvement who used tobacco in the past month reported cigarette use. Not only was cigarette use more common, but the intensity of use was substantially higher. For example, we found that, among those who reported cigarette use, individuals with a history of criminal justice involvement were younger at initiation, used more cigarettes per day, and were 31% more likely to screen positive for nicotine dependence. Earlier age of initiation and higher rates of dependence likely explain the significantly higher rates of COPD we found among individuals who used cigarettes with a history of criminal justice involvement compared to those with no criminal justice involvement. There were no significant differences in the rate of heart conditions among individuals with and without criminal justice involvement, although the available question within NSDUH does not specifically refer to heart conditions known to be strongly associated with smoking, for example, coronary artery disease [32]. Both the higher prevalence and intensity of tobacco use among individuals likely mediate the relationship between criminal justice involvement and high cardiovascular morbidity and mortality [33]. 041b061a72