Archiwum Kryminologii (Archives of Criminology)

9-39

Authors: Stanley Cohen

What this essay does, is re-tell the history of revisionist thinking about crime and its control over the last 20 years. Anti-criminology was a highly self conscious enterprise. Very soon after its initial apearance, it was marked by self-doubt and eventually a series of major internal revisions. The initial changes in anti-criminology appeared as it began to absorb the implications of its own creations. This was followed by a further set of mutations forced by having to reconsider its relationship to an external (mainly political) world. By the middle and more clearly, the end of the Seventies, liberals and radicals began to publish evaluations of what had happened to the original vision. The conclusion was dismal. The visualized reforms had not been put into practice at all or they had been put into practice for the wrong reasons or they had been co-opted and absorbed in such a way as to completly blunt their radical edge. The old structures had not only turned out more resilient than we thought but the “alternatives” now overlaid on the existing system had actually made matters worse: coersive social control is disguised, the net of state control widenes. Four relevant political responses began to emerge. First, “radical impossibilism" – a re-statement of the traditional belief that no progressive reforms are possible without a major restructuring of the whole political economic order; second, “liberal realism” – a sense of caution, scepticism and even despair, a further lowering of the (already diminished) liberal horizon; third, “re-affirmation” – an attempt to show (as the European abolitionists are doing) just what a literal translation of the original vision would have to look like; fouth, “left realism” – a retention of socialist principles, but this time with a willingness to engage in socia reform, a determination to be “relevant'” and a denunciation of the original vision as romantic and utopian. The main features of currently dominant “left realist” position are: 1) Instead of demystifying the crime problem as a product of media myths, moral panic or false consciousness, crime is now acknowledged to be a real problem. There is a rational core to the fear of crime. One cannot gloss over the demoralization and disorganization which are both the causes and products of predatory and violent crime. 2) Although the particular psychological form it took was misconceived, the original positivist enterprise of finding the causes of crime was fully justified. Just when mainstream crimonology has abandoned these aetiological questions in favour of a know-nothing managerialism, so must radicals return to the obvious contexts in which crime emerges in modern society: poverty, racism, deprivation, social disorganization, unemployment, the loss of community. 3) Older idealist notions ‒ such as the elevation of the criminal into a “primitive robel” or crypto-political actor – must now be finally repudiated. And historical analysis, while important for building a sociology of law, is no real substitute for solving the traditional problems of criminology. 4) Radical criminology, then, must make itself politically relevant by operating on the very same terrain which conservatves and technocrats have appropriated as their own. It cannot afford to risk the errors of the Sixties by allowing itself to be marginalized. In short, left rearism is realistic. This, it is argued, is where any credible alternative to mainstream criminology must be constructed. The heady mixture of well meaning liberalism, romantic anarchism and a new left style marxism which characterized the initial phase of anti-criminology could hardly together for very long. As I have just recorded, these ingredients were soon separated out. A theoretically purer Marxism, a visionary anarchism, re-constituted liberalism and finally, left realism, all emerged as destinctive political stances against mainstream criminology. Any attempt to explain the fate of anti-criminology must avoid a narcisstistic exaggeration of its importance. These ideas were diffused with commitment and enthusiasm and they reached the centre of the criminological enerprise. But at no point has the theoretical or political momentum been strong enough to pose a real threat to a dominant tradition. Finally let me set out the wider spectrum of styles available in academic criminology today. The single criterion of this typology is ideology. 1) Conservative: the traditional conservative model stresses the primacy of law and order, a strengthening of the legal and penal system, classical doctrines of punishment such as deterrence, a moral crusade against permissiveness and lack of authority as the sources of crime. The reconstituted, neo-conservative version retains the values of the original but is more pragmatic, more selective about the use of state power, less ambitious or fundamentalist in its commitment to restoring a lost social hierarchy. 2) Managerial: this style overloeps closely with neo-conservatism but it professes to be wholly non-ideological, pragmatic and technocratic. Energy is devoted to only one of three criminological questions: that is, how to design an effective crime control policy. 3) Liberal: there are three variants of liberalism now. The most traditional version retains the programme of pre-Sixties positivism – treatment, rehabilitation, reform, individualization. The second variant is the neo-liberalism. It supports the due process rather than crime control model. A third variety of liberalism is now emerging. Its theory of crime causation is virtually identical to that of left realism, but its overall political programme and geneology is close to “genuinely” liberal of social democratic goals. 4) Socialist: the traditional version locates crime in the total system of inequality and dominance in capitalist society, rejects mere reformism and looks towards a revolutionary change in the social order which will result in socialist legality. The reconstituted version is left realism. 5) Abolitionist: it remains faithful to most of the components in the initial anti-criminology vision. In particular, it takes as a literal truth the original set of insights about the relativity of the criminal/penal law model as a form of categorisation and social control. 6) Theoretical: it is content to leave to others any political implications of its work. The commitment is to sociology and to the integrity of knowledge as a value in itself, not a subordinate to any other interests.

75-115

Authors: Dobrochna Wójcik

The object of the paper is to show the trends of convictions for aggressive offences in Poland in the years 1972-1987 basing on court statistics, and to characterize this type of offences and their perpetrators. Moreover, basing on the findings of several Polish criminological studies, some of the factors have been indicated which may play an important part in the origin of aggressive offences. The main focus here is the problem of such offenders aggressiveness and their drinking habits, as the two factors are rather clearly connected with the discussed type of offences. Offences to be submitted to statistical analysis have been separated according to psychological and criminological criteria and not to the classification adopted in the Polish penal code. Thus only those offences from various chapters of the penal code have been taken into account where the facts of the given cases contained an explicit element of physical aggression against person or object, or of verbal aggression. Naturally, there is a great variety of acts which contain an element of aggression and are numbered among offences: they infringe different human values and interests from as vital as life and health to dignity, honour, or religious feelings. Also different is the seriousness of those acts (both misdemeanours and crimes being found among them), as well as the danger they create to the public weal, and the statutory penalties provided for them. Throughout the analysed period 1972–1987, the total number of convicted persons was relatively stable and amounted to the average of 150–160 thousand a year; it went down in 1977 and 1981–1984, only to increase again to the previous level in the years 1985–1987. Also the crime rate fluctuated similarly, amounting to 65–59 per 10,000, adult population, with the exception of 70.6 in 1972. In some years, the decrease of both the number of convictions and the crime rate can be explained with amnesty laws, while the increased number of convictions, in the years 1985–1987 resulted, among other things, from certain additional though temporary legal regulations introduced in that period (particularly from the Act of 1985 on special criminal responsibility). In the period under analysis, the proportion of persons convicted for aggressive offences amounted to about 40 per cent of the total number of convictions. At the same time, starting from 1975, a certain slight downward trend in the proportion of such convictions can be found, to as low as 35-36 per cent in the years 1979–1980, followed by an increase to the previous level. A certain decrease in the extent of convictions for aggressive offences can be explained partly with demographic changes. In the period under analysis, despite the general increase of the population aged 17 and more (by 12.9 per cent), the number of men aged 17–20 went down by about 35.5 per cent, and the same trend could be found in the case of men aged 21–24. It is a well-known fact that aggressive offences are committed mostly by young persons. Analysing the extent of aggressive offences from the point of view of the offenders’ sex and age, we find somewhat different trends in young adult as compared with adult men and women. Aggressive offences constitute about 60 per cent of all offences committed by young adult men, and 34–40 per cent of those of adult men. In the period under analysis, offences of this type committed by young adult men kept up the above level, fluctuations being greater in the case of adult men. In the structure of female crime, aggressive offences play a less significant role and constitute about 20 per cent in both age groups. There is also, as in the case of men, a distinct trend: stability of proportion of convictions of young adult women for such offences (about 20 per cent), and a distinct decrease in the case of adult women (from 23 to 12.6 per cent). Taking certain groups of offences as well as the separate acts into account, we find a considerable increase in the number of aggressive offences against property. It is determined mainly by the increase in the proportion of convictions for burglary and of particularly audacious larceny, and to a slight extent – for damage to property. Instead, proportions of convictions for robbery are rather stable. In the discussed period, robbery which contains an explicit element of aggression revealed no changes as regards the number of convictions: instead, upward trends could be found mainly in the case of burglary and of particularly audacious larceny where explicit aggressive traits can not always be found. Thus this finding corresponds but to some extent with the world trend. In the discussed period, a downward trend could be found as regards convictions for offences which involved physical and verbal aggression against person. Convictions for offences traditionally regarded as serious and dangerous for the public weal, such as murder or rape, remained at the same level, while those for bodily injury trended downwards. As has been mentioned above, the number of robberies, also included among serious offences, remained stable, the proportion of convictions for offences of this type arnong all convictions for aggressive acts being rathen low (murder, 0.5–07 per cent; rape, 2 per cent; robbery, 6.8 per cent). What should also be stressed is the decrease in convictions for participation in a brawl or battery, particularly in rural districts, and for assault on a public functionary or police officer, starting from 1978. Instead, convictions for physical or moral cruelty towards a family member maintain a rather high level with a slight upward trend. A regular increase it the number of convictions for that offence which dates from 1950s, is related to the trends in prosecuting and sentencing policy in family cases. The influence of the changes in criminal policy and legislation is also distinct in the case of convictions for violation of bodily inviolability, insult, and insult of a police officer which went down to begin with and then started increasing in numbers. The second part of the paper contains a discussion of the problem of conditions of aggressive crime. An attempt was made basing on the findings of criminological studies to answer the question whether most perpetrators of aggressive offences can be characterized as highly aggressive persons and excessive drinkers. The analysis concerned both the fact of repeated perpetration of aggressive offences, and the occurrence of aggressiveness as a permanent personality trait. As may be concluded from the studies of offences committed by different samples of young adults those in whose criminal career was at least one aggressive offence (c.g.) robbery, hooligan act, homicide) were more frequently than others convicted for aggressive offences. Thus the question should be answered whether most of the perpetrators of aggressive acts are characterized by distinct aggressiveness as a permanent personality trait. One can hardly suppose in this connection that a single aggressive offence might constitute a sufficient proof of the offendner’s aggressiveness. If, however one and the same person repeatedly commits aggressive offences, he might be an aggressive individual. A person has been defined as aggressive who reveals aggressive behaviour or a decidedly hostile attitude towards many persons in different situations. It has been found basing on psychological examination with the Buss- Durkee questionnaire and detailed data from interviews (which the authoress used to construct scales of aggressiveness), that most perpetrators of aggressive offences are characterized by a considerable aggressiveness as a relatively stable personality trait. Moreover, aggressiveness measured this way is a significantly less frequent characteristic of young adult offenders against property, and of non-delinquent youth. The above findings contribute but to some extent to the explanation of the nature of aggressive crime, as aggressiveness of offenders should be considered in connection with many other factors which exert a mutual influence on one another and jointly determine a criminal act in a given situation. In studies of various samples of aggressive offenders, their considerable excessive drinking was found. The issues under analysis included, among other things, the role of drinking in the origin of aggressive crime, alcohol’s direct as well as indirect influence on criminal behaviour taken into account. It was arqued that the offender’s intoxication plays a greater part in the origin of aggressive crime than of offences against property. Also the interdependence between aggressiveness and excessive drinking. As shown by the findings (among other things, of studies of young adult perpetrators or robbery and hooligan acts), excessive drinkers revealed intense aggressive behaviour significantly more often than those who did not drink excessively; moreover, such behaviour was found already at school which means that those persons were already aggressive as children, before they developed excessive drinking habits. Theorefore, their subsequent regular drinking could have been related to emotional instability with which also their aggressiveness was connected. They could have seeked relief of their emotional tension in excessive drinking. Also aggressive behaviour served to abreact that tension. To conclude, it should be stated that the perpetrators of aggressive acts, as opposed to those who commit mostly offences against property, are highly aggressive as a rule. Most of them also regularly drink excessively. Though they were not found to be significantly different in this respect from offenders on the whole, nevertheless alcohol no doubt plays an important part in most of their aggressive acts. In a given situation, their excessive drinking habits, intoxication at the moment of the act, or aggressiveness caused or intensified their already existing serious conflicts with the environment, influenced their distorted perception and interpretation of the reality, and facilitated an impulsive reaction to casual misunderstandings, and could therefore contribute to the emergence of aggressive acts qualified as offences.

199-285

Authors: Jerzy Jasiński

The Surveys Since 1961, nine alcohol consumption surveys were carried out on the national level in Poland. The interests of their authors, the contents of questionnaires, and the ways of conducting the surveys varied, but most of them exhibited some common features. First of all, the respondents were met personally by the interviewers who filled up the questionnaires during the interview. Most of the surveys were based on quota samples of adult population, but in some also youngsters aged over 15 or 16 were included into the sample. The last occasion approach prevailed in the surveys; in one of them only, the respondents were asked to describe their last three drinking occasions. In some surveys, the respondents were also requested to estimate the frequency of their drinking of spirits during the last three months. In the present paper, some findings of the fifth and seventh surveys are analysed. The two surveys were carried out in 1980 and 1985, respectively. The estimate of frequency of drinking spirits derived from answers to the questions related to drinking during the last three months and to those about the last drinking occasion proved to differ markedly in exceptional cases only. However, as expected, the last occasion approach produced somewhat higher estimates of consumption level than that based on the respondent’s appraisal of the frequency of his or her own drinking during the last three months. The coverage rate was similar in both surveys: 47 per cent in 1980 and 56 per cent in 1985, and its level is in accordance with the findings obtained in surveys carried out in other countries. The Questions The questionnaires of both surveys included several questions related to positive and negative experiences the respondents had had as a result of their drinking. The proper part of the questionnaire used in the 1980 survey was of an experimental character. Its main aim was to collect data on the issue neglected in the Polish literature, i.e. on rewards resulting from drinking alcohol. In the literature in question, much attention had been paid to the detrimental consequences of drinking as if they were the only ones. The assumption that drinking has also some positive value for alcohol consumers seemed plausible: why would they otherwise drink at all? The questions asked were not intended to reveal what really happened to the persons who consume alcohol, but rather to get some insight in to the way they perceived occurrences which they rightly or mistakenly attribute to their drinking of alcohol. What seemed interesting were also the spheres of life in which alcohol played a positive as opposed to a negative role. As that part of the questionnaire was of an exploratory nature only, the respondents were asked about events in which alcohol helped them somehow or caused them getting into trouble, whenever that occurred. In the questionnaire of the 1985 survey, more attention was paid to the wording of those questions. Firstly, the respondents were asked about occurrences which had happened during the last twelve months preceding the interview. That was the time limit introduced in order to separate drinkers from non-drinkers, and in that case also to distinguish the “current” from the past events. Secondly, in the case of a good as well as bad experience, the types of occurrences in question were both of a trivial character and of such a nature that they could be related to a single drinking occasion. Thirdly, in reration to some spheres of life questions, about both positive and negative consequences were asked. Some of the questions included in the 1980 and 1985 questionnaires were formulated the way adopted in the Scandinavian Drinking Survey of 1979 which was carried out in Finland, Iceland, Norway, and Sweden. Similar questions were also asked in Finnish surveys conducted in 1968, 1976, and 1984. The Polish, the Scandinavian, and the Finnish surveys, were carried out at different times, in different manners, and on differently drawn sampres. Therefore, it would be impossible to compare, their findings directly. However, it seems interesting to point to some most striking discrepancies between them as a point of departure for theorizing on possible differences in the role played by alcohol in social life in Poland and in the Scandinavian countries. The Findings The main findings of the inquiry qan be summarized as follows: As could be expected, asking about events which might have occurred at any time in the respondents’ life has led to a higher proportion of positive answers as compared to asking about events that occurred during the last twelve months. In the Polish surveys, this could be noticed in the case of sorting out probrems related to people close to the respondent (49.7 and 21.7 per cent, respectivery), of taking a more, optimistic view of life (40.8 and 18.7 per cent, respectively) and in several other questions, while in the case of the Finnish surveys, in relation to being picked up by the police for being drunk (8.5–10.9 and 3.5 per cent, respectively). This observation is fairly obvious and has been mentioned here only to support confidence in the findings obtained. The questions included in the questionnaire of the 1980 Polish survey were formulated in a manner that was not too well suited for comparisons between the positive and negative experiences stemming from drinking. However, they provided some clues for supposing that good experiences occur more often than bad ones. The evidence provided by the answers in the l985 survey clearly supports this assumption. First of all, the prevalence of an experience is related to its type. The most common ones were: being more resolute in company, and spending more money than one otherwise would (it happened to 36.2 and 34.9 per cent of drinkers, respectively, during the last twelve months). It shows that positive as well as negative experiences related to drinking may be quite common. Most revealing are the answers to questions that pertain to similar types of events. There were four times more drinkers who felt that because of alcohol they were more resolute in company than those who acted as spoil-sports in company because of their drinking (36.2 as opposed to 8.3 per cent, respectively); three times more respondents who sorter out problems connected with their job with the help of alcohol than those who had some trouble at work because of their drinking (23.8 as opposed to 6.7 per cent, respectively); distinctly more sorted out problems related to people close to them than spoiled their relations with such persons (21.7 as opposed to 14.8 per cent, respectively); and finally, many more respondents took an optimistic rather than a pessimistic view of life because of drinking (18.7 as opposed to 10.4 per cent, respectively), It shows definitely that positive consequences of their own drinking are noticed by far more persons than the negative ones. The above findings concern the distribution of answers obtained from all drinkers in the sample. However, they do not preclude the contents of individual respondents’ answers. Are there two separate groups of drinkers: one consisting of those who have positive experiences with drinking, and another one, distinctly smaller, made up of those who have negative experiences related to the use of alcohol? Or is there one group only: the same people have good and bad experiences with drinking, the good ones prevailing in most cases? None of these alternatives appeared to be fully substantiated by the findings of the 1985 survey. First of all, more than two in five of the drinkers reported none of the good experiences listed, and more than one in two – none of the bad experiences. Thus there is a third (or a second) group of respondents drinking alcohol, viz. those who have neither positive nor negative experiences with it. Hence the possible concurrence of good and bad experiences related to drinking may be found in about a half of the drinkers only. All types of good and bad experiences were positively correlated with all types of bad experience listed in the questionnaire (X2 = from 87.8 to 274.3; df = 4; p < T = from 0.17 to 0.32). This points clearly to the second of the above alternatives, viz. to the view that those were predominantly the same persons who admitted having had both good and bad experiences related to drinking. Formulating this observation differently, one might say that having some good experience with drinking enhances the likelihood of having also bad experience with alcohol, and vice versa. In order to proceed further in this analysis, two indices were calculated. Both of them are related to variety and not quantity of experiences, as the questionnaire of the 1985 survey did not contain questions about how often the separate types of experiences listed had occurred. To form the index of good experiences, the number of “yes” answers was calculated, and accordingly the respondents received scores from 0 (no “yes” answers) to 7 (“yes” answers to all types of experiences quoted). The index of bad experiences was formed similarly. The mean score was 1.65 for positive experiences and 1.12 for the negative ones which shows once more that the incidence of the first kind of experiences prevailed over the other one. As it has already been mentioned, quite a number of respondents gave no “yes” answers at all. On the other end of the scale, there were relatively few persons who gave five or more “yes” answers; in the case of good experiences, there were 11 per cent of such persons, and in the case of bad ones – 5 per cent only. The close relationship between having good as well as bad exaperiences is demonstrated by the mean scores of index of good experiences related to drinking calculated for every level of the index of bad experiences, and vice versa. The picture shown by those scores is quite clear: the higher the number of positive types of experiences related to the use of alcohol, the higher also the number of negative experiences stemming from drinking. The same is also true for negative experiences: the greater their number, the more numerous also positive experiences. In conclusion it can simply be said that the drinkers who believe that alcohol drinking is rewarding are generally also aware of some unpleasant consequences which follow its use, and vice versa. A closer look at the scores of both indices revealed that on every level of the index of positive experiences, the number of those experiences exceeded markedly that of the negative ones (the only exception found is in the case of no positive experience). A partly similar picture emerges while looking at the consecutive levels of negative experiences: in the lower part of the scale, mean numbers of positive experiences surpass those of negative ones; only in the case of those respendents who reported four or more types of negative experiences, the numbers of positive experiences were smaller. Finally, the question arises how could this concurrence of good and bad experiences be explained. Or, to take a different approach, what, if anything, distinguishes the respondents who admit having many types of positive and negative experiences from those who do not happen to have them at all or who have a few only. The answer is again surprisingly simple. What seems to determine the number of experiences related to drinking is the level of alcohol consumption. In the case of the Polish drinking habits, this means practically the level of consumption of spirits. The greater the number of types of negative or positive experiences, the higher the consumption level of alcohol (spirits). In persons who reported no good or bad experiences related to drinking, mean alcohol consumption was less than a half of the average. With a rise in the number of types of positive and negative experiences stemming from drinking, the amount of alcohol consumed is also rising steeply to a level more than twice as high as the average for all drinkers. It has also to be stressed that the conusumption level associated with the same number of types of negative experiences related to drinking is higher than in the case of positive ones. Looking at this relationship at the background of the level of consumption, it can be stated that e.g. those who drunk ten to eleven litres of spirits yearly have had one type of bad and two types of good experiences related to the use of alcohol; those who drunk seventeen to twenty litres had two to three types of bad and three–four types of good experiences; and those who drunk about twenty-five litres of spirits yearly had four types of bad and five types of good experiences stemming from alcohol. The predominance of positive experiences is present all the time; however, it tends to get smaller with the increase in consumption level. The description of respondents who tended to have more good and bad experiences related to drinking corresponds strictly to that of those who are drinking more than others. Over-represented are among them: men, middle-aged, having primary education only or unfinnished secondary school, having, blue-collar jobs, describing themselves as nonbelievers or non-practising believers, having disputes and arguments with their families, with neighbours, friends, colleagues and superiors at work, having often the feeling of not enjoying the esteem they deserve. Conclusions For most Poles who drink alcohol, drinking does not seem to be associated with any particular experiences of a positive or negative value. They do not drink much, do it occasionally, probably mostly for social reasons. For those who drink more than the average and, in particular, for those who drink heavily, alcohol consumption tends to be associated with some good or bad experiences which they relate to their use of alcohol. The more they drink, the more experiences of both kinds they have. However, experiences of a rewarding nature prevail over consequences that are annoying or unpleasant. While looking at similar Scandinavian surveys, some striking differences in the incidence of types of occurrences related to drinking can be noticed. In Poland, alcohol seems to serve much more often than in the Scandinavian countries as a means of sorting out problems the drinking person has with people close to him, and in particular, in sorting out his or her problems at work. On the other hand, as far as the use of alcohol for acquiring some psychological effects is concerned (such as improving the mood, better expressing one’s feelings, or saying something one regrets afterwards), the Poles do not seem to differ much from the Scandinavians, particularly from those who are ress successful in this sphere. The Poles seem to have also more health problems related to drinking, even in comparison to those Scandinavians who drink mostly spirits, like the Icelanders.

339-373

Authors: Paweł Zakrzewski

The paper presents the finding of a longitudinal study of two problems: the addicts’ prospects of quitting drugs, and the psycho-social factors conducive to success in this respect. The first study (conducted in the years 1974–1976) concerned all patients aged 15–28 treated in that period for repeated taking of drugs, at the disaccustoming clinic for young persons and at district clinics for adults in the city of Łódź. The total of 107 patients were examined (23 per cent of girls and 77 per cent of young men). According to medical diagnosis, 21 per cent of them suffered from a social, 50 per cent – from a psychological, and 29 per cent – from a physical dependence. After about 10 years, a catamnesis was carried out which concerned 80 patients. The methods applied in both parts of the study were: detailed interviews with the patients and their families; medical examination; and analysis of a variety of documents. For the estimation of the fates of the sample, the following issues were of the key importance: persistence in or abandonment of addiction; permanence of abstinence; and the extent of self-dependence achieved. This complexity of the examined persons’ situation taken into account, the following criteria of improvement have been adopted: a) medical (persistence in abstinence); b) psychological (psychological acceptance of abstinence and the resulting change of lifestyle); and c) social (active engagement in the appropriate social roles). Basing on the above criteria, the following categories were distinguished within the sample:1) persons who persisted in addiction; 2) deceased in consequence of addiction; 3) those who quit taking drugs but still had various problems resulting from their former addiction; and 4) those who quit and had no special problems. Against previous expectations, persons who kept taking drugs (26 per cent) did not constitute the mos tnumerous group. Their mean period of taking drugs was 13.6 years. Their interests and social contacts were narrowed to problems related to the taking and production or obtaining drugs. They were generally emaciated and had increasing withdrawal symptoms. Persons of this group went through several months’periods of abstinence due to treatment, imprisonment, or a favourable occurrence in their lives. All of them, however, relapsed into addiction quite promptly, particularly when faced with unavoidable difficulties. Family life or married persons in this group was unhappy, and most marriages broke up: only those between two addicts still lasted. Biographies similar to those discussed above were also found in the case of persons (9 per cent) who died during catamnesis in circumstances that pointed to their death’s relationship with the taking of drugs and with addiction, interpreted also as a certain lifestyle. All persons of this group had been taking drugs for a long time (over five years), and their death was due either to serious diseases combined with emaciation, or occurred in unexplained circumstances as a border-line case between accident, suicide, and homicide. 3.The largest group (46 per cent) consisted of persons who admittedly quit taking drugs but still had various health and social problems related to their previous addiction. Their main problems were as follows: in the sphere of physical health, chronic gastritis, entero-gastric disorders. diseases of liver, heart probiems, reduced physical endurance, disturbances of sleep, and in the sphere of mental health: anxiety, hypersensibility, difficulties in establishing relations with others, depression, low selfesteem, lack of self-confidence, high emotional instability, latent inward anxiety, etc. The most important and frequent social problems included leaving secondary school and the related subsequent lack of professional qualifications, a more difficult start into adult life, the need to relinquish certain professional aspirations and a more interesting job, and a lack of prospects of promotion. In most respondents, this caused a sense of instability and inevitably gave rise to frustrations, increasing their passiveness and apathy. This situation was particularly painful for persons whose intellligence had been rather high before they started taking drugs and who used to have various interests and aspirations. The coincidence of the ahove circumstances also negatively affected their family and marital situation. The fates of persons who quit after several years of taking drugs seem to indicate that those persons’ tolerance to stress and ability to overcome difficulties had been greatly impaired during the period of addiction: as a consequence, they were subsequently unable to cope even with everyday matters which they perceived as great problems. The last group consisted of persons (19 per cent) who had been taking drugs for a shorter period as a rule (not longer than five years in general), and who were not only able to persist in abstinence during catamnesis but also met the psychological and social criteria of improvement. A high proportion of girls in this group (over 50 per cent) seems characteristic. Moreover, nearly all those persons were married: their marriages, happy as a rule, were a great assistance to them. Therefore, the total of 65 per cent of the sample succeeded to quit addiction. What was crucial here was not exactly the form of dependence (social, psychological, physical) but rather the length of the period of taking drugs. If a person has been taking drugs for over five years, his prospects of improvement diminish greatly, and favourable results can only be obtained in the course of a prolonged rehabilitation. The reasons that made most persons in the sample abandon their addiction were seeked both in their personality traits and family environments. What is characteristic is that a considerable portion of respondents come from the intelligentsia, with an average or even high social status and good material situation (in which respect they differ greatly from e.g. juvenile delinquents or young alcoholics). There is in such families a rather small extent of pathology such as alcoholism, crime, or prostitution. In most cases, the parents’ attitude to their children’s taking of drugs should be estimated as proper. The parents played an effective role, fighting for their children to quit as a general rule. Aware of the dangers related to drugs, they took energetic steps which consisted among others in changing the child’s environment (e. g. moving with him to another town), inducing him to undergo treatment and organizing that treatment, supervising his leisure activities, etc. Parents’ improper attitudes such as scenes, turning the child out, etc., were most seldom. The analysis of the reasons which made about two-thirds of respondents quit addiction included their character and intellectual traits defined in the course of psychiatric examination. There was in the sample a rather large number of individuals with the so-called immature personality, who at the age of about 25 were still characterized by traits such as a passive attitude to life; inconsideration for their own future; a poorly developed critical attitude towards themselves and their situation; emotional immaturity; dependence on others (e.g. the mother or friends); inabitity to act effectively, to overcome obstacles and to achieve distant aims; easy discouragement when faced with difficulties, etc. It was only during catamnesis, at the age of about 25, that the respondents’ former, largely childish attitudes were transformed with delay into normal traits of young persons. This development and the crystallization of personality, connected with the parents’ activities and their proper attitude towards the children’s addiction, were conducive to abandonment of addiction by, a considerable portion of the sample. Other factors which played this favourable role in the respondents’ biographies were: a rather high intellectual level; the “psychological shock” caused e.g. by detoxification at a mental hospital or the death of a close friend due to overdose; and imprisonment and going through the withdrawal syndrome in such conditions, etc. To interpret the findings, the conception of American alcohologist J. Ewing has been used: it speaks of inducing and protecting factors in the development of alcoholism. According to Ewing, an individual who starts taking drugs regularly is influenced by a number of biological, psychological, and social factors, some of them conducive to the development of addiction and others protecting the individual against it. Despite the opinions of some researchers, “protecting” factors prove strong enough to hold back even an already addicted person and to contribute to his abandonment of drugs. With the prolongation of the period of taking drugs, the influence of protecting factors wanes, and that of the ones which induce the individual to continue the taking of drugs and thus foster a further development of addiction spreads. The following practical conclusions have been drawn from the study: – Intensified therapeutic and rehabilitative treatment, during the first years of taking drugs in particular. – Co-operation with the addicts’ parents who should be instructed (e.g. about the ways of soothing difficulties in adjustment); whose activity should be assisted, e.g. through the organization of parents’ self-help associations; whose contacts with specialist clinics should be made easier, etc. – Creation of possibilities of medical and rehabilitative treatment for various cotegories of young persons addicted to drugs (not all of them feel comfortable in the existing centres, e.g. of the MONAR movement). – Short-term hospital treatments are reasonable at the initial stage of addiction (several years of taking drugs), as in that period the addicted person’s power of resistance can be strengthened inherent both in his personality and the environment. Help and care should be provided for addicts who have already drugs but have life problems caused or aggravaquited by their previous addiction.