Objective: To investigate the behavioral characteristics of criminal offenders with amphetamine use disorder. Methods: The authors reviewed the legal and medical records of 34 criminal offenders who received forensic psychiatric evaluation at Taipei City Psychiatric Center from April 1981 to January 1997. All of the offenders met DSM-Ⅳ criteria for either amphetamine abuse or amphetamine dependence. Relationships between substance misuse pattern, nature of the offenses, victims. motives and psychopathology at the time of the offense were investigated. The differences between the psychiatrist's opinions and the judgements of the court were also investigated. Results: Offenders of amphetamine dependence tended to commit offenses against property or against society as a whole. Their victims consisted mostly of strangers. Offenders of amphetamine abuse committed more offenses against property than offenders of amphetamine dependence. Their victims consisted mostly of strangers. Most of the offenders who committed severely violent offenses against people or arson were under the influence of prominent psychotic symptoms during criminal acts and had not received regular psychiatric treatment prior to the offenses. The consistency rate between the psychiatrist's opinions and court judgements was 93.9%. Conclusion: The results of the study revealed that the psychiatrist's opinions and court judgements about the responsibility of these offenders were influenced by their psychotic symptoms. Further attention should be drawn to the assessment of whether subgstance related intoxication and psychotic states are voluntarily induced or not.