Report: Drug Use Increased Prior to Incarceration

WASHINGTION — The number of female inmates using drugs before they were incarcerated in federal prisons increased between 1997 and 2004 by more than 10 percent, according to a recent report.

Nearly 48 percent of female prisoners in federal prisons reported using drugs in the month prior to their offense, up from about 37 percent in 1997, according to a report released in October by the Bureau of Justice Statistics.

At state prisons, the number of women who reported using drugs in the month before their offense dropped from about 62 percent in 1997 to 59 percent in 2004.

Drug use among both male and female prisoners in federal correctional facilities rose slightly between 1997 and 2004, while prior drug use among state prisoners remained stable during the same time frame.

Fifty percent of federal inmates reported using drugs in the month prior to their offense in 2004, an increase of 5 percent over 2004. Drug use among state inmates in the month prior to their offense dropped to 56 percent in 2004, from the 57 percent tally in 1997.

“In the early ’90s and mid-’90s, when we did surveys with these two populations, the drug abuse numbers for state prisoners were quite a bit higher than what they were for federal inmates,” says Christopher J. Mumola, BJS policy analyst. “Now they are getting very close to one another and the increases for federal inmates has brought them equal to the kind of drug use we have seen in the past at state prisons.”

Prisoners 24 years old or younger had the highest rate of drug use in the month prior to their offense, with 62 percent admitting drug use in 2004, but the greatest percentage change between 1997 to 2004 was among inmates 45-54 years old. About 45 percent of that age group reported drug use, a nearly 10 percent increase.

METH USE AMONG STATE AND FEDERAL INMATES Among state prisoners in 2004: • Female inmates (17 percent) were more likely than males (10 percent) to report use of methamphetamine in the month before their offense. • White inmates (20 percent) were almost twice as likely as Hispanics (12 percent) to have used methamphetamine. About 1 percent of black inmates reported using methamphetamine in the month before the offense. • Violent offenders (6 percent) were half as likely to use methamphetamine as either drug (19 percent) or property (13 percent) offenders. Similar patterns emerged among federal inmates: • Females (15 percent) were more likely than males (10 percent) to have used methamphetamine in the month before the offense. • White inmates (29 percent) were 6 times more likely than Hispanics (5 percent) to report using methamphetamine. Black inmates (1 percent) reported low use of methamphetamine. • The percentage of drug offenders who reported use of methamphetamine (14 percent) was three times higher than that of violent or property offenders (4 percent of each).

A quarter of federal inmates were under the influence of drugs at the time of their current offense. Fourteen percent said they were using marijuana/hashish, 7.4 percent were using cocaine/crack, and 7.2 percent were using methamphetamine.

A third of state inmates said they committed their current offense while under the influence of drugs. About 15 percent said they were under the influence of marijuana, about 12 percent were using cocaine/crack, and 6.1 percent were using methamphetamine.

Methamphetamine use increased among both state and federal inmates in the month before their offense. Of the state inmates surveyed, 10.8 percent reported using meth in 2004, up from 6.9 percent in 1997. Meth use among federal inmates in 2004 was at 10.1 percent, up from 6.5 percent.

The report on drug use was created with data from a periodic survey of state and federal prisoners that the BJS had conducted in the 1970s. In 2004, the survey involved confidential personal interviews with a nationally representative sample of about 14,500 state and 3,700 federal inmates.