Limit DIP to PPOs
The Drugs Intervention programme (DIP) could operate in every area but be limited within each area to the drug users identified as most actively engaged in acquisitive crime by the Home Office’s Prolific and other Priority Offenders (PPO) Scheme.
"Everyone is agreed on the importance of providing treatment for offenders who are experiencing or causing harm through their use of drugs. Some coercion through drug testing on arrest and other measures does bring into treatment many people who would not otherwise have approached treatment services. The intention is that the Drug Interventions Programme (DIP) should provide a series of interventions, both medical treatment and other types of support, properly coordinated between different agencies. In other words, the Programme is intended to provide better individual case management for one specific group of people."
We believe that universal testing on arrest for the various specified trigger offences should be abandoned and the Drug Interventions Programme should be confined to a smaller group of people with more serious drug problems and more personal incentive to address them.