§ Mr. ClaphamTo ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department what the estimated level of drugs-driven crime for the UK was in each of the last five years for which figures are available; and if he will make a statement. [168726]
§ Caroline FlintRecorded crime figures, which are used to measure trends in crime, include statistics on drugs offences, such as possession, and on property crimes, such as burglary, but do not record whether the latter are related to an offender's drug habits. There are therefore no figures currently available for levels of drug-driven crime over the last five years.
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, these figures are not nationally representative.
Analysis of the data from the first eight sites in the survey, collected during 1999–2000, showed 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). Those arrestees reporting no drug use in the year before this study reported an average of 46 acquisitive crimes compared to 432 among heroin and/or cocaine/crack users.