Skip to main content
U.S. flag

An official website of the United States government

Official websites use .gov
A .gov website belongs to an official government organization in the United States.

Secure .gov websites use HTTPS
A lock ( ) or https:// means you’ve safely connected to the .gov website. Share sensitive information only on official, secure websites.

Skip to content

Changing Patterns of Drug Abuse and Criminality Among Crack Cocaine Users in New York City: Criminal Histories and Criminal Justice System Processing, 1983-1984, 1986

Metadata Updated: November 14, 2025

This data collection compares a sample of persons arrested for offenses related to crack cocaine with a sample arrested for offenses related to powdered cocaine. The collection is one of two parts of a study designed to examine the characteristics of crack users and sellers, the impact of large numbers of crack-related offenders on the criminal justice system, and their effects on drug treatment and community programs. Official arrest records and supplementary data bases are used to analyze the official arrest, conviction, and incarceration histories of powdered cocaine and crack defendants. Questions addressed by the collection include: (1) How are defendants charged with crack-related offenses different from defendants charged with offenses related to powdered cocaine? (2) Is there a difference between the ways the criminal justice system handles crack offenders and powdered cocaine offenders in pretrial detention, charges filed, case dispositions, and sentencing? (3) How do the criminal careers of crack offenders compare with the criminal careers of powdered cocaine offenders, especially in terms of total arrest rates, frequencies of nondrug crimes, and frequencies of violent crimes? (4) Is violence more strongly associated with crack dealing than with powdered cocaine dealing? and (5) How does the developmental history of powdered cocaine sales and possession compare with the history of crack sales and possession? Variables include demographic information such as gender, residence, and race, arrest, conviction, and incarceration histories, prior criminal record, community ties, and court outcomes of the arrests.

Access & Use Information

Public: This dataset is intended for public access and use. License: us-pd

Downloads & Resources

Dates

Metadata Created Date August 18, 2021
Metadata Updated Date November 14, 2025

Metadata Source

Harvested from DOJ JSON

Additional Metadata

Resource Type Dataset
Metadata Created Date August 18, 2021
Metadata Updated Date November 14, 2025
Publisher National Institute of Justice
Maintainer
Identifier 2820
Data First Published 1992-10-31T00:00:00
Language eng
Data Last Modified 2005-11-04T00:00:00
Public Access Level public
Bureau Code 011:21
Metadata Context https://project-open-data.cio.gov/v1.1/schema/catalog.jsonld
Metadata Catalog ID https://www.justice.gov/data.json
Schema Version https://project-open-data.cio.gov/v1.1/schema
Catalog Describedby https://project-open-data.cio.gov/v1.1/schema/catalog.json
Harvest Object Id f77d176d-a1a5-41a3-82a3-663d71ef3e8f
Harvest Source Id 3290e90a-116f-42fc-86ac-e65521ef3b68
Harvest Source Title DOJ JSON
License http://www.usa.gov/publicdomain/label/1.0/
Program Code 011:060
Publisher Hierarchy Office of Justice Programs > National Institute of Justice
Source Datajson Identifier True
Source Hash 3292b998ca0257c1b55a9d1a11c379ae08454c3b12174e756ea858d9904300b2
Source Schema Version 1.1

Didn't find what you're looking for? Suggest a dataset here.