CJS 344 Drug Using Criminal

Related to criminal personality, the course presents the thinking of drug-users and how it facilitates criminal behavior. Focusing on the work of Yochelson and Samenow, the student will explore how crime attributes to a series of early irresponsible choices that predate drug use among drug-using criminals. Personality and personal choice variables are conceptualized as critical in initialing and maintaining use. In what is called an indiscriminate search for excitement, drug-using criminals are characterized as expanding their criminal repertoire while excusing their actions by rationalizations sometimes invented by sociologists, psychologists, and psychiatrists. Spring 2019