Drug-related Crime (Hansard, 19 September 2002)

§ Mr. Bob Ainsworth

Recorded crime figures include statistics on drugs offences and on acquisitive crimes, such as burglary, but do not record whether the latter are related to an offender's drug habits. Levels of drug-related crime cannot be measured directly as no routine statistical data are collected on whether an offence may have been committed as a result of drug taking. However, the NEW-ADAM (New English and Welsh Arrestee Drug Abuse Monitoring) research published between 1998 and 2001 sheds some light on the links between drugs and acquisitive crime. The research is insufficiently advanced, however, to reveal the precise links between drugs and violent crime. Neither are we able to supply an estimate of the total value of the goods and money stolen per annum in the United Kingdom to finance the purchase of illegal drugs.

NEW-ADAM research by Bennett reported in Home Office Research Study 205, "Drugs and Crime: The Results of the Second Developmental Stage of the NEW-ADAM Programme" and in Research Findings 148 and 183 has shown that the mean number of property crimes committed by those using heroin and cocaine/crack was around 200 in the last 12 months compared to 52 for those using neither heroin nor crack/cocaine. Over forty per cent. of arrestees thought that their drug use and crime were connected, and when asked about this connection, more than two-thirds said that this was due to the need for money to buy drugs. Those who tested positive for three or more drugs reported on average three times the

Fines and fixed penalties data for speeding offences, England and Wales, 2000
	Number of Fines	Court Proceedings Total Amount of Fine £	Average Fine	Fixed Penalties Number of Tickets	Estimated Revenue (£)¹
England	128,700	17,011,000	£132	926,760	40,160,000
Wales	10,500	1,083,000	£103	96,720	4,191,000
¹"Estimate" based on the following fixed penalty charges—£40 up to 31 October 2000 and £60 as from 1 November 2000.