Crime emphasis submerges other DAT roles
The association with the CDRPs has brought with it a heavy emphasis on crime issues that threatens to submerge their other roles.
DATs are now often chaired by Community Safety managers, the equivalent within CDRPs of the DAT coordinator, usually drawn from the police or probation services. They are far less often chaired by representatives of the health services, whose participation in DATs has generally declined, apparently since the rise to prominence of the criminal justice agenda within the national drug strategy.