Problem Gambling Is Once Again In The Center Of Attention

An academic literally review has revealed “a dearth of knowledge worldwide about the links between crime and problem gambling,” calling for change to tackle a variety of concerns.

The Commission, set up by the Howard League for Penal Reform, started its audit in 2019, finding that, while a great many individuals are influenced by betting either legitimately or in a roundabout way, there have all the earmarks of being less than 50 friend looked into papers over the most recent 25 years that address the connections between issue betting and wrongdoing explicitly.

Accordingly, the Commission plans to direct its own examination in three strands: the primary undertaking will take a gander at the commonness of betting related wrongdoing; the subsequent will consider the lived understanding of individuals made up for lost time in the framework; and the third will investigate sentencers’ familiarity with the issue.

Led by Lord Goldsmith QC, the Commission tries to set up what the connections between issue betting and wrongdoing are, what sway they have on networks and more extensive society, and what steps could be taken to diminish wrongdoing and make individuals more secure.

Ruler Goldsmith QC, clarified: “Worry about hurtful betting movement has been developing for quite a while, yet this is the principal commission to concentrate explicitly on the connection between issue betting and wrongdoing.

“From people getting into debt and defrauding family members or employers, to domestic violence and other crimes relating to gambling-related stress, we know anecdotally that police stations, courts and prisons see significant numbers of cases – but only a handful of academic studies have looked at this across the globe.

“The criminal justice system itself does very little work to capture the scale of the challenge and even less in terms of offering interventions like those we see for alcohol or drug problems. This has to change and our Commission can play a key role in improving the response to disordered gambling and crime.”

The literature review covers regions including Australasia, the US, Canada, Germany, Scandinavia and the UK, stressing that “while the overall quantity of research is not huge, there is a consistency in findings across all jurisdictions”.

Researchers comment that they have “found high prevalence rates of people committing crimes to fund their gambling. A wide variety of crimes are committed as a result of gambling addiction; not just ‘white collar’ crimes such as theft and fraud, but also offenses that occur in public spaces such as street robbery.

“There is significant evidence of domestic abuse and child neglect linked to problem and pathological gambling”.

Furthermore, it is suggested that the more complex, prolonged and persistent a gambling problem is, the more likely it is that a crime will be committed and that many crimes may result.

Acknowledging a growing understanding that gambling addiction is a behavioral disorder, it was added that little has been translated to sentencing with problem gambling not considered to be a mitigating factor in the way mental health problems or drug and alcohol addiction are.