LHO : Arrest Referral

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Lifestyle & behaviour - Arrest referral

Overview
Local data
Key points

Overview

Arrest referral (AR) is a crime reduction initiative that seeks to identify drug users at the point of arrest, encourage them to address their drug problem and obtain appropriate treatment. AR schemes do not offer an alternative to prosecution or due process but provide help with getting access to treatment services. The arrest referral service is offered to all arrestees by a custody officer as part of the booking-in process. Dedicated drug workers based either on-site or on-call to the custody suite contact all arrestees who express an interest in the service. In addition, AR workers are able to visit the cells to introduce the scheme directly to arrestees, emphasising its independence from the police and voluntary nature. The data presented in this section stem from the London Arrest Referral Monitoring Database - (LARMD).

Within London, demographic information on arrestees is collected for all contacts made (8). For arrestees who choose to be assessed and possibly referred through the AR scheme, more detailed information is collected on drug use, treatment history, income, offending behaviour and assessment outcome. The data is scanned into an Access database located at the National Treatment Agency. Regular standard reports are produced for the Home Office, Metropolitan Police Service (MPS), Drug Action Teams (DATs) and AR schemes.

The data presented here does not include data from contact only arrestees, i.e. those who refused or were inappropriate for AR assessment. Data for all assessments undertaken by AR workers in London for the calendar period April 2000 to February 2004 are presented. Data are incomplete for the fiscal year 2003/04 as from March 2004 the Arrest Referral scheme was superseded by the Criminal Justice Intervention Programme (CJIP) in 17 London boroughs namely Camden, Haringey, Newham, Waltham Forest, Ealing, Islington, Southwark, Wandsworth, Hackney, Lambeth, Tower Hamlets, Westminster, Brent, Croydon, Hammersmith and Fulham, Kensington and Chelsea and Lewisham. The aim of CJIP is to create effective care pathways from the criminal justice system into treatment.

The interventions include:

Enhanced arrest referral (see below)
Drug testing for cocaine and opiates for offenders charged with 'trigger' offences. (Drug testing on charge was extended with effect from 1 August 2004 to include young persons from the ages of 14 to 17 in 10 pilot sites)
Restrictions on bail for those who test positive for a specified Class A drug on charge to encourage defendants to enter treatment.
Community sentences with treatment conditions attached (such as Drug Treatment and Testing Orders) being more widely used and supported by collaborating agencies to ensure their effectiveness.

In enhanced arrest referral instead of just referring the client into treatment arrest referral workers take on case management and care planning of their clients until they enter treatment (hence addressing the gap between referral and treatment placement). This includes providing advice and information and low-threshold treatment interventions. We hope to gain access to CJIP data in the near future.

In addition to the local data below we have produced a report summarizing trends in London Arrest Referral for the period April 2000 - February 2004 which can be found here: Arrest Referral Four Year Data.

Drugs & Health Behaviour - Arrest Referral - Datasets & Resources

Date	Title	Format	View
8 Nov 2004	London Arrest Referral Monitoring Database - Assessments Between April 2000 and February 2004, Borough Level

Key points

Assessments

Across the four year period, arrest referral workers in London assessed over 23,000 arrestees (Tables C1 and C2)
Approximately 85% of those assessed in each year were male (Tables C1 and C2).
In each of the fiscal years, the highest proportion of assessments were in the 20-24 year old age group (Approximately 23%) (Tables C3 and C4)
Of those assessed approximately 61% were White, 24% from the Black ethnic group, and 9% from the Asian ethnic group in each year (Tables C5 and C6).
There is marked variation in the rate of assessments per total arrests in the borough from 6% to less than 1%. However, these rates should be treated cautiously as they are likely to reflect differences in working practice of the arrest referral scheme, and size of custody suit and therefore should not be taken as a indicator of drug related crime (Table C7).

Drugs taken

Heroin and crack were the most commonly recorded drugs taken within the last 30 days in each fiscal year (at approximately 60%). In 2003/04 the proportion of those using crack (65.2%) exceeded those using heroin (59.3%). (Table C8)
Heroin combined with crack increased across the period from 38% in 2000/01 to 47% in 2003/04. An increase in heroin combined with crack use was seen in both males and females and amongst the White and Asian ethnic groups (use in the Black ethnic group remained at approximately 30%) (Tables C9, C10 and C13)

Offences arrested for

The three most commonly reported offence types arrested for were shoplifting, other (which includes robbery of personal property, criminal damage, breach of bail, disqualified driving and other offences) and drug offences (this is not surprising as arrest referral workers target those arrested for acquisitive and drug related crimes). (Table C15)