§ Mr. CummingsTo ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department how many drug related offences there were in the Easington constituency in the last three years; and what the success rate for prosecution was. [170125]
§ Caroline FlintRecorded crime figures, which are available at police force level and are used to measure trends in crime, include statistics on drugs offences, such as possession, and on property crimes, such as burglary. However they do not record whether the latter are related to an offender's drug habits. There are therefore no figures currently available for the proportion of crime in the Easington constituency which was connected to drug addiction, and what the success rate for prosecution was.
The Home Office sponsored New English and Welsh Arrestee Drug Abuse Monitoring (NEW-ADAM) survey, which involved interviewing and drug testing those arrested by the police, provides an insight into the proportion of crimes that are drug related. However, this survey does not provide sub-national data and is also not nationally representative.
Data collected from 16 sites across England and Wales during 1999 to 2001, show that heroin and/or cocaine/crack users reported committing an average of 442 acquisitive crimes in the last 12 months. This figure is much higher than for non-drug users, who reported committing an average of 79 acquisitive crimes in the same period.
518WA comparison of the survey's findings from eight sites across the country visited in 1999 and 2002, indicate that there was no change in the proportion of arrestees testing positive for one or more of six illicit drugs. Nearly two-thirds (65 per cent.) of arrestees in each year tested positive for any drug.