The Australian Institute of Criminology (AIC) has released a report detailing the extent of illicit drug and alcohol involvement in crime.
In the study, 2,249 police detainees were interviewed to determine whether they attributed their offending to drug or alcohol use.
Almost half of all detainees attributed their offending to recent drug and alcohol use, while over 84 per cent reported some substance use in the past month.
"It is clear that the majority of detainees attributed drug and alcohol use to altering their behaviour, resulting in their offending," AIC Deputy Director Dr Rick Brown said.
Since 2009, alcohol use as an attributing factor has decreased by 13 percentage points, but methamphetamine use has risen by 22 percentage points in the same time period.
Heroin and ecstasy have also fallen as factors attributable to offending.
"More than 150,000 offences in Australia were attributable to illicit drug and alcohol use, which highlights the importance of demand reduction programs, which can be run alongside targeted supply reduction efforts," Dr Brown said.
The report is available for download on the AIC website .
The Australian Institute of Criminology
The AIC is Australia's national research and knowledge centre on crime and justice, and seeks to promote justice and reduce crime by undertaking and communicating evidence-based research to inform policy and practice.
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