HC Deb 27 January 2003 vol 398 cc700-2W
Mr. Norman

To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department (1) what proportion of drug treatment testing orders in(a) Tunbridge Wells and (b) Kent have been breached; [92105]

(2) how many drug treatment and testing orders have been made in (a) Tunbridge Wells and (b) Kent; [92107]

(3) what proportion of those given drug treatment testing orders in (a) Tunbridge Wells and (b) Kent have subsequently reoffended; [92106]

(4) what estimate he has made of the cost of drug treatment testing orders in (a) Tunbridge Wells and (b) Kent. [92104]

Mr. Bob Ainsworth

No unit cost information is available for the specific costs of drug treatment and testing orders (DTTO) in Kent and Tunbridge Wells. The assessed national average unit cost of a DTTO is £6,000, of which £2,400 is retained by the probation service to cover supervision, enforcement and other related costs. The balance of £3,600 per order is transferred to the Department of Health pooled treatment budget to cover treatment and related costs. 234 orders have been commenced in Kent since the national roll-out of DTTOs in October 2000. Kent probation area has been set a target of 160 DTTOs in the current year and 86 orders have been made to 30 November 2002 including six orders in Tunbridge Wells.

It is increasingly the practice of the courts when considering a breach of an order, to allow the DTTO to continue where good progress has otherwise been shown. Information is collected centrally on the total number of breach actions initiated but is not available in a form which allows the incidence of breaches to be linked to an individual order.

Since national roll-out in October 2000, Kent probation has initiated breach action which resulted in the revocation of 121 orders: 91 for failure to comply, and 30 following a conviction for another offence. However, some of these offences were committed before the order began. Results from local intelligence sources, including the police, suggest that the volume of offending for this chaotic group of offenders is reduced and maintained over time for those responding to their treatment.

Mr. Norman

To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department what proportion of each type of crime in(a) Tunbridge Wells and (b) Kent in each of the past five years was deemed to be drug-related. [92116]

Mr. Bob Ainsworth

Recorded crime figures include statistics on drugs offences, such as possession, and on acquisitive crimes, such as burglary, but do not record whether the latter are related to an offender's drug habits.

However, the New English and Welsh Arrestee Drug Abuse Monitoring (NEW-ADAM) research programme, which involves interviewing and drug testing those arrested by the police, confirms a link between drug misuse and crime, although the conclusions do not relate specifically to Kent. Analysis of the data from the first eight sites in the survey, collected during 1999–2000, shows that 65 per cent. of arrestees provided a urine sample that tested positive for one or more illegal drug. The analysis also shows that up to 29 per cent. of arrestees tested positive for opiates (including heroin) and/or cocaine (including crack).

As a guide to the proportion of crime that is drug-related, analysis of the NEW-ADAM self-report data indicates that while only 21 per cent. Of non-drug using arrestees reported having previously offended in the past 12 months, this figure rises to 75 per cent. for those arrestees who use heroin and/or cocaine/crack. Moreover, while users of both heroin and cocaine/crack represented just under one quarter of all arrestees interviewed, they were responsible for more than three fifths of all the illegal income reported.

In support of this, 55 per cent. of arrestees who reported using one or more drugs in the last 12 months and committing one or more acquisitive crimes, acknowledged a link between their drug use and their offending behaviour. This proportion rose to 78 per cent. for arrestees who said they had used heroin and cocaine/crack.