§ Mr. Jim CunninghamTo ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department what assessment he has made of the proportion of violent crime and burglary associated with drug addiction; and what plans he has to tackle this problem(a) in Coventry and (b) in the UK. [28884]
§ Mr. Bob Ainsworth[holding answer 21 January 2002]: While there is strong evidence to show a relationship between drug misuse and acquisitive crime, the current research is insufficiently advanced to reveal a precise link with individual types of crime. Work is on-going in this area through, for example, the new English and Welsh Arrestee Drug Abuse Monitoring programme of interviewing and testing arrestees in eight locations.
We have in place a number of initiatives aimed at diverting drug misusers away from crime and into treatment. These include interventions such as arrest referral, drug treatment and testing orders, and the piloting of drug testing at various points in the criminal justice system under the provisions of the Criminal Justice and Court Services Act 2000. In the current financial year we also launched the Communities Against Drugs 839W Programme (CAD) with £220 million of central Government funding aimed at tackling drug markets and other drug-related crime at local level.