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Search for press releasesProgramme hits the target as DIP leads to dip in drug-related crime
24 July 2008
A government programme to cut drug-related crime has reached a formidable milestone, Home Office Minister Vernon Coaker said today.
The Drug Interventions Programme (DIP), which has been directing Class A drug using offenders into treatment since 2003, has achieved the landmark of getting 1,000 offenders into drug treatment each week.
The aim of the programme is to break the cycle between drug use and offending. To that extent it has been successful: acquisitive crime, which is largely drug related, has fallen by a fifth in the last five years. There are considerable benefits for all: drug using offenders get help through treatment and support; communities suffer less crime; and criminal justice costs are reduced. For every £1 spent on treatment, an estimated £9.50 is saved in health and crime costs.
Home Office Minister Vernon Coaker said:
“Drug use wrecks lives and blights communities. Through the tough choices offered to offenders via the Drug Interventions Programme we now have 1,000 drugs users a week accessing treatment and drug fuelled acquisitive crime, that blights communities across the country, has fallen by a fifth.
“We have not only helped individuals and their families, but also improved the quality of life in the communities that suffer from the criminal and anti-social behaviour linked to drug use.
“This would not have been achieved without the sterling efforts of those drug treatment professionals, the police and other delivery partners who work at the front line combating the harms of drug misuse.”
Many of those who undergo drug treatment through the Drug Interventions Programme are among the hardest to reach problematic drug users, whose habit makes it hard to live day to day.
Offenders who have committed drug related crime, such as shoplifting or theft from a car, are tested in police stations for the most harmful drugs like cocaine/crack and heroin. If the offenders test positive, they are directed into a treatment programme to tackle their habit. There are also interventions at several other points on an offender’s journey through the criminal justice system.
Now, five years after the programme began, a total of 176 police custody suites across England and Wales have the power to test offenders on arrest.
Those who work in the Drug Interventions Programme are the kind of people who could be nominated for the Home Office’s Tackling Drugs Changing Lives Awards, which recognise the effort of those who go that extra mile to tackle drug use.
Notes to Editors:
1. Case studies of drug users whose lives have been transformed by DIP are available at the Home Office press office. Please call 020 7035 3835 if you wish to interview such a case study.
2. DIP is a key part of the Government’s Drug Strategy that was published in February 2008. For more on “Drugs: protecting families and communities: the 2008 drug strategy” go to http://drugs.homeoffice.gov.uk/publication-search/drug-strategy/drug-strategy-2008-2018?view=Standard&pubID=531716.
3. For more on DIP go to http://drugs.homeoffice.gov.uk/drug-interventions-programme/.
4. Anyone can make a nomination for the Tackling Drugs Changing Lives Awards. To make an application go to http://drugs.homeoffice.gov.uk/awards2008 (new window) . All nominees must work for a recognised organisation.
5. By getting 1,000 drug users into treatment each week the Government has successfully met a key component of Public Service Agreement Four (SR2004). The Prime Minister called on drug treatment professionals to increase the numbers of those going into treatment to 1,000 a week; in March 2004, that figure was only 438.
