Social Work with Drug, Alcohol and Substance Misusers by Anthony Goodman

Author:Anthony Goodman [Goodman, Anthony]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Social Science, Social Work
ISBN: 9781473904668
Google: BPQTBAAAQBAJ
Barnesnoble:
Publisher: Learning Matters
Published: 2013-10-14T03:54:32+00:00

community in Britain are prone to a range of physical, emotional, sociological and psychological problems caused by racism, deprivation, poverty and class discrimination . . . all the necessary ingredients for a young Asian person to become involved in the problematic use of drugs . . . the ‘whiteness’ of Britain’s heroin epidemic was so much taken for granted that social researchers, almost invariably, did not bother to use any system of ethnic monitoring. (Patel, 2000, p43)

Fountain et al. (2003) found that there was a lack of knowledge about the nature and extent of drug use by black and ethnic minority groups, and much of the literature was described as ‘grey’, meaning qualitative and without academic rigour, producing ‘snapshots’ of information. Certain groups had not figured in these pieces of research. This is despite the fact that the Race Relations (Amendment) Act 2000 places a general obligation on all public authorities to promote racial equality.

Risk factors centred on social exclusion and deprivation. Many communities were less likely to use illicit drugs than whites but prevalence was growing, as it is in the white population. Cannabis is the most widely used drug among younger people, but heroin and crack use is reported; injecting is less common but is not exceptional. There is a barrier to accessing services due to discriminatory policies, lack of acknowledgement of the problems within the communities, lack of knowledge of the services, fears of breaches of confidentiality, lack of minority ethnic staff, etc.

European comparisons show that prevalence of drug taking is broadly similar in most European countries (EMCDDA, 2000), although amphetamines are used much more in the UK (EMCDDA, 2000). Most European countries target younger drug users, agree that imprisonment is not the answer and that methadone and drug-free treatment can reduce recidivism. In terms of the effectiveness of drug testing, as envisaged initially in the DTTO, it is necessary to examine the experience of the United States. Here the evidence is somewhat equivocal, and may depend on the integrity of the programme and be expensive, not least in terms of court time (Cullen et al., 1996). This is echoed by other research where intensive supervision programmes (ISPs) led to an increase in technical violations and a subsequent increase of offenders going to prison: ‘In no instance did the drug ISP reduce officially recorded recidivism’ (Turner et al., 1994, p245). Community orders with a drug treatment component will therefore have to be demonstrated to be successful, cost effective and more appropriate than other ways of working with drug users.

ACTIVITY 4.7

What are the implications of all this on young drug-taking offenders?

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