Criminal justice system fails to lessen drug use

Prison and community sentences do not deter addicts from taking drugs and in some cases result in greater consumption, according to the findings of a new Home Office study.

Drug offenders who are jailed actually increase the amount and variety of illegal substances they use a year after their imprisonment, the report concluded. Offenders who get non-custodial sentences continue to take about the same amounts of drugs. The study also found that only about 5 per cent of the sample received regular drug treatment in the community 12 months after being sentenced.

The disturbing findings indicate that the criminal justice system is failing to have any effect on the drug use among addicts. It also suggests the current treatment programmes are utterly inadequate. A national drugs agency last night called for a radical change in treatment.

The report, Persistent Drug-Misusing Offenders, based on a study by Professor Philip Bean and Dianne Winterburn of Loughborough University, interviewed 148 persistent drug offenders. The sample, who were mostly unemployed, white single men in their twenties, had committed a range of offences including burglary, theft, violence, and drug possession and supply.

About half took heroin, four in ten had tried crack, and most took a combination of drugs which also included cannabis, amphetamine, tranquillisers, and LSD.

The group was interviewed a year after conviction - about half were given jail sentences and half community penalties - but only 71 responded.

Those who were imprisoned consumed more types of drug in the month at the end of the year than at the beginning - from 81 types to 101 - while the number of times drugs were used in the month increased. from 2.5 per person to 3.1. For those who received a non-custodial sentence the rates declined slightly, but not significantly. Over the year, about half the drug users were reconvicted of further offences.

The report concluded that there was a "need for the criminal justice system to ensure that drug treatment is more widely ... available than it is at present".

Mike Goodman the director of Release, the national drug and legal help line, said the report had to be treated with caution because it was a small survey, but it clearly showed that jail or community sentences failed to stop addicts taking drugs.

He said: "We need treatment and education to assist drug users to radically change their situations and habits. The criminal justice system has very little impact."