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Home Office

Answer

Mr. Laws:: To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department what recent assessment he has made of the links between crime levels and (a) poverty, (b) income inequality, (c) legal drug abuse, (d) illegal use of drugs and (e) family break-up; and if he will make a statement. [95724] Mr. Denham: The British Crime Survey (BCS) 2001-02 provides information on victims of crime and includes statistics on risks of crime by household type for burglary (table 4.03), vehicle thefts (table 5.04) and violent crime (6.02). Figures are broken down into categories which include household income, employment status and area type. More detailed analysis of the risks of burglary, based on the 1998 BCS, was published in 1999. This analysis did not show an independent link between risk of burglary victimisation and household income. The BCS 2001-02 also published risks by types of neighbourhood. This showed that people living in the more deprived `striving areas' tended to experience higher risks generally, although there was also an increased risk in `rising areas', such as affluent urban areas. In terms of offending, poverty has been identified as one of the potential risk factors associated with offending. For example, a study of working class boys found that a combination of low income, poor housing and large family size consistently identified an increased risk of self-reported offending, criminal convictions and both juvenile and adult offending (Farrington 1992b and 1992c). The new English and Welsh Arrestee Drug Abuse Monitoring (NEW-ADAM) research programme, which involves interviewing and drug testing adults arrested by the police, confirms a link between drug misuse and crime. Analysis on the links between crime, family background and drug use is published in the 1998-99 Youth Lifestyles Survey. This examined the extent to which various factors were associated with offending among young people aged 12 to 30. Figures show, for example, that young people who lived in a lone parent or a step parent family were more likely to be serious or persistent offenders than those who lived with their natural parents. However, persistent, serious conflict between parents, or between a parent and a child, appears to be more important, in this respect, than family structure. While some structures--notably lone parent families--are correlated with an increased risk that children will offend, the evidence suggests that this is a product of factors that also affect children in two- parent families. Drug users were also more likely to be serious or persistent offenders than non-drug users. In the spring we intend to publish a series of reports on the relationship between binge-drinking by young people and offending. Work is also being undertaken on a literature review on the relationship between alcohol and violence.

Secondary information

Type

Written question

Reference

95724; 399 c771-2W;399 c769-70W

Session

2002-03

Subjects

Crime Disadvantaged Equality Families Drugs Personal income Low incomes Poverty Misuse Lone parents Separation

Link

View this Written question on www.publications.parliament.uk