Do the Drugs, Do the Time? The Effect of Drug Abuse on Sentences Imposed on Drug Offenders in Three U.S. District Courts

Abstract

The purpose of this study is to determine whether offenders’ history of hard drug use and hard drug use at the time of the crime affect case outcomes for offenders in three federal district courts. We focus on three outcomes—whether the offender was in pretrial detention prior to adjudication, whether the offender received a downward departure for providing substantial assistance, and the length of the sentence imposed on offenders who were sentenced to prison—and we hypothesize that the offender’s history of drug use and drug use at the time of the crime will have varying effects on the three outcomes. Our results reveal that use of illegal drugs had multifaceted, but not illogical, effects.