§ Mr. Mark HobanTo ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department pursuant to the Answer given to the hon. Member for Middlesbrough, South and Cleveland, East (Dr. Kumar), 9 May 2003,Official Report, column 641W, if he will make a statement on the results of research carried out by the Home Office into the proportion of crimes that are drug-related. [115938]
§ Mr. Bob Ainsworth [holding answer 3 June 2003]The Answer given to my hon. Friend the Member for Middlesbrough, South and Cleveland, East (Dr. Kumar) on 19 May 2003,Official Report, column 641W, gives details of the percentage of recorded crime figures that are specifically drug offences (such as possession). Whilst recorded crime figures include statistics on these drugs offences, they do not record whether other crimes, such as burglary or theft, are related to an offender's drug misuse.
462WHowever, the Home Office sponsored New English and Welsh Arrestee Drug Abuse Monitoring (NEW-ADAM) research programme, which involved interviewing and drug testing those arrested by the police, provides an insight into the proportion of crimes that are drug related.
Analysis of the data from the first eight sites in the survey, collected during 1999–2000, shows that 65 per cent. of arrestees tested positive for one or more illegal drug, with up to 29 per cent. testing positive for opiates (including heroin) and/or cocaine (including crack). Whilst users of both heroin and cocaine/crack represent just under one-quarter of all arrestees interviewed in NEW-ADAM, they were responsible for more than three-fifths of all the illegal income reported.