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PAPERS: Carolyn Coffey, Friederike Veit, Rory Wolfe, Eileen Cini, and George C Patton Mortality in young offenders: retrospective cohort study BMJ 2003; 326: 1064 [Abstract] [Full text]

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Mortality in young offenders

Jørg Mørland, Svetlana Skurtveit, Asbjørg Christophersen and Merete Grung   (6 June 2003)

Mortality in young offenders 6 June 2003
Jørg Mørland, director, professor Division of Forensic Toxicology and Drug Abuse, Norwegian Insitute of Public Health, Svetlana Skurtveit, Asbjørg Christophersen and Merete Grung Send response to journal: Re: Mortality in young offenders	EDITOR- Coffey et al. (1) recently reported high mortality ratios in young offenders as overall standarised mortality ratios adjusted for age were reported to be 9.4 for men and 41.3 for women. Deaths from drug related causes predominated for both sexes. They concluded that the finding that death rates in young offenders exceeded those in groups with even higher rates of psychiatric and behavioural disorders indicates, that social disadvantage and marginalisation of this group may have played additional an part in many deaths. They suggest that social policies for young offenders should address both the prevalent drug and mental health problems as well as social disadvantage and marginalisation of this group. We have recently conducted a similar study in 2002 (2) among another offender group of somewhat older age in Norway. Apprehended impaired drivers 20-39 years old who provided blood samples positive for alcohol (n=2531) or drugs other than alcohol (n=918) constituting the total national samples of these two driver categories during one year were followed-up with respect to mortality for a 7.5 –years period subsequent to apprehension. The studied cohort had considerable excess mortality when compared with the general population of Norway. In comparison with the age matched general population the mortality rate was four times higher for male drunken drivers. The excess mortality was even more pronounced for drugged drivers, 18 times higher for men and 40 times higher for women. The majority of deaths resulted from drug poisoning/overdoses, accidents and suicides. The result from our study demonstrated that the mortality among drunken and drugged relatively young drivers was comparable to, and in fact often higher than among alcohol and drug abusers. Both our study (2) and the study of Coffey et al (1) indicated that offenders, both adolescents or young adults, are marked by high risk of premature deaths. Studies on socio-economic and education status have generally found that young offenders are overrepresented in the lower strata and unemployed categories. Both studies also show especially high premature death for female offenders. Taken together the studies call for the development of new strategies with respect to the follow-up of young offenders, specially young women in countries around the world to prevent a major loss of “live years”. The effectiveness of such new strategies could be evaluated in future studies of similar types. 1. Coffey C, Veit F, Wolfe R, Cini E, Patton GC. Mortality in young offenders: retrospective cohort study. BMJ 2003, 326: 1064-1067. (17 May.) 2. Skurtveit S, Christophersen AS, Grung M, Mørland J. Increased mortality among previously apprehended drunken anad drugged drivers. Drug Alcohol Depend. 2002, 68:143-150. Competing interests:   None declared