Among populations involved in drug abuse and predatory crime, a temporal sequence from drug abuse to predatory criminality is not typical; rather, predatory criminality commonly precedes drug abuse. Drug-abusing offenders who engage in increasingly deviant behavior over time may eventually cross over a threshold to heroin addiction or frequent polydrug abuse. The intensity of their criminal behavior usually escalates substantially. If these high-rate offenders subsequently decrease their drug use, they also reduce their crime rate. Among offenders who use multiple drug types, their predatory-crime rates are typically two or three times higher in periods of heavy drug use than when they are in drug treatment or abstain from drug use. 8 tables and 60 references