Do criminal cultures generate drug use? Crime, Drugs and Social Theory critiques conventional academic and policy thinking concerning the relationship between urban deprivation, crime and drug use. Chris Allen outlines an innovative constructionist phenomenological perspective to explore these relationships in a new light. He discusses how people living in deprived urban areas develop ânatural attitudesâ towards activities, such as crime and drug use, that are prevalent in the social worlds they inhabit, and shows that this produces forms of articulation such as âI donât know why I take drugsâ, âI just take themâ and âdrugs come naturally to meâ. He then draws on his constructionist phenomenology to help understand the ânatural attitudeâ towards crime and drugs that emerge from conditions of urban deprivation, as well as the non-reasoned forms of articulation that emerge from this attitude. The book argues that understanding the conditions in which drug users deviate from their ânatural attitudeâ can help effective intervention in the lives of drug users.
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