Drugs & Alcohol
Arrest Referral Monitoring Programme statistics
A key objective in the government’s drug strategy ‘Tackling
Drugs to Build a Better Britain’ is to protect communities from
drug-related anti-social and criminal behaviour. This is to be achieved
in particular by referring drug-misusing offenders at police custody
suites into appropriate drug treatment services, so that their drug
problem can be tackled.
£20 million (as part of the Crime Reduction Programme) was earmarked in
July 1999 to contribute to the finance of arrest referral workers
and treatment resources across England and Wales over three
years. The majority of these schemes became operational from 1st
April 2000 as police forces recruited arrest referral workers to work
within police custody suites.
DPAS published the first update in June 2001. This provides information from the
arrest referral national monitoring programme from October to December
2000. It is based upon data collected in England from the Regional Drug
Misuse Databases.
Subsequent reports will include information from Wales and links are given below to later reports which contain cumulative data.
MAIN POINTS
In England during a three-month period (October to December 2000), 9,501 interviews with arrestees held (arrested earlier/elsewhere) in police custody were reported by arrest referral workers. These data refer to 9,214 individuals.
The majority of arrestees interviewed were male (84%) and white (89%) with an average age of 27 years. There was a slightly younger proportion interviewed compared with problem drug users attending drug treatment services.
Over half of arrestees (51%) interviewed had not previously accessed drug treatment services. This may indicate a high level of unmet demand for treatment amongst the arrestee population. Over a quarter of arrestees (28%) interviewed stated that they were currently receiving treatment.
Just over half of all those interviewed were referred to drug services (53%). Nearly half (45%) of those referred to drugs services had never received treatment prior to referral.
Heroin was the most frequently reported drug of use (56%), followed by cannabis (35%) and crack (20%). There was also a high level of reported weekly expenditure on drugs (an average of £293 per week for all offenders). Women reported higher levels of expenditure per week than men.
Those arrestees interviewed had been arrested for a variety of offences, including shoplifting (24%); selling or possessing drugs (16%) and burglary (10%). 84 per cent also had previous convictions.
Nearly two-thirds of arrestees interviewed stated a main source of income was from social security benefits (64%). Shoplifting was also reported by 40 per cent of the sample.
Download the full document Arrest
Referral Monitoring Programme: Briefing note and update 
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Last update: 25 May 2005