Drug Interventions Programme
Impact and success
The Programme 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 a fifth. New research has just been published (November 2007) by the Home Office, demonstrating the impact of DIP.
Read the news release about the research here.
Click here for the executive summary.
The full report is here. (new window)
Round-up of other evidence on the impact of the Drug Interventions Programme
2008 DIP success stories: round-up of recent case studies from around the country (August 2008)
Here are some other successes:
- 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. For every £1 spent on drug treatment, at least £9.50 is saved in health and crime costs.
- The Programme remains on target to get 1000 drug-misusing offenders into treatment each week by 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 up to half test positive for Class A drugs.
Come back here to find more evidence of success, and the findings of studies done into the impact of DIP.
