This study was conducted to examine the relationship between theft and crimes committed against property to satisfy substance needs, and to investigate the impulsivity factor in the relationship between substance needs and theft. The sample consisted of 400 male volunteers aged 18 and over who had been convicted of theft at the T-Type Closed Prison in Istanbul. Data were collected using a demographic information form and the Barratt Impulsivity Scale Short Form. Relationships between variables were analyzed using the Chi-square test. The results showed that 63.3% (n = 253) of the participants committed their first theft offense to obtain drugs, and 85.4% (n = 216) continued to commit theft for the same reason. The primary reason for all theft offenses was substance acquisition need, accounting for 55.5% (n = 222) of cases. Furthermore, evaluations conducted using the Mann-Whitney U test revealed that individuals who committed theft due to the need to obtain substances had significantly higher impulsivity scores on all subscales compared to those who committed theft for other reasons (p .05). The study emphasizes that preventing substance use should be a priority in order to prevent theft crimes and that impulsivity should be taken into account in policies developed to combat substance use, thereby contributing to the limited scientific literature on the relationship between substance use, theft, and impulsivity.
Ağır et al. (Sat,) studied this question.