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A research programme in Canada is aimed at estimating attributable fractions for the use of alcohol and illicit drugs in relation to crime. Analyses from two studies of new inmates in federal penitentiaries are presented, the first based on a computer-driven questionnaire completed by 8,598 inmates and the second on interviews with 477 inmates. One method used in the estimation combined the following three models linking psychoactive substances to criminal behaviour: the intoxication model, the economic model and the systemic model. Data pertaining to the first two models were used to illustrate this method. Consistency checks showed that crime events attributed to illicit drugs or alcohol were concordant with the inmate being addicted to a substance, and with the inmates' overall assessments of drugs or alcohol on their criminality. Issues discussed include validity, the extent to which findings can be generalized and the advantages and drawbacks of basing attributable fraction estimates on data from self-reports on individual crime events.
