Drug Interventions Programme
Impact and success
The Drug Interventions Programme (DIP) is successful in helping reduce drug-related crime in England and Wales. Since it began, acquisitive crime - to which drug-related crime makes a substantial contribution - has fallen by more than a third. There is considerable evidence of the impact DIP is making, both through formal qualitative and quantitative research and analysis and through case stories of people who have gone through the programme.
- DIP success stories - 2009
- DIP success stories - 2008
- DIP impact evidence round-up – summaries and sources
- DIP research report - executive summary (new window)
- DIP research report - full document (new window)
Other examples of the success of DIP include:
- in many of the areas that had the highest acquisitive crime, a wider or more 'intensive' range of DIP measures has been operated than elsewhere and early evaluation showed crime falling faster in those areas than others
- it offers a win-win solution: drug-misusing offenders get help through treatment and support; communities suffer less crime and criminal justice costs are reduced
- a critical element of the programme is the delivery of a broad range of effective treatment and wraparound support, which is more cost effective than putting offenders through the criminal justice system repeatedly without support to help them address their drug problem
- the programme had a target to increase the number of drug-misusing offenders entering treatment through the criminal justice system to 1,000 each week by March 2008 and this was achieved two months early, a massive achievement from a baseline of just 438 people going into treatment in March 2004
- figures show there have been consistently, more than 4,500 people a month entering treatment since January 2008 and the figure topped 5,000 for the first time in July 2008
- many DIP clients are among the hardest-to-reach and most problematic drug misusers and have not previously engaged with treatment in any meaningful way
- treatment services and other support for people with drug issues, not just offenders, are improving – and waiting times are reducing - as a result of greater investment and more joined-up working between agencies. The treatment workforce has increased by half, to 9,000, since 2002
- data shows that the right people are being targeted and around a third test positive for the specified Class A drugs, heroin and or cocaine/crack
