Toni Makkai and Jason Payne examine the illegal drug using and criminal careers of male participants in the Drug Use Careers of Offenders (DUCO) project. DUCO surveyed 2135 adult male offenders in prisons in Queensland, Western Australia, Tasmania, and the Northern Territory in mid 2001. The report focuses on the development of the criminal career, drawing comparisons among regular offenders of different offence typologies and commenting on a variety of risk factors associated with offending. It explores the intersection of drug use and criminal behaviour and estimates that just over one third of all offenders causally attributed alcohol and/ or illegal drugs to the offence/s for which they were incarcerated.

A shorter report, featuring key findings from the DUCO study (19) is also available