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Crime: Reoffending

My Lords, I am very pleased that the noble Baroness, Lady Linklater, has secured this debate. I congratulate her on introducing it with such passion about constructive and reparative measures, with which I completely agree. I want today to focus my remarks mainly on the relationship between reoffending and drug use. I declare an interest as the chair of the National Treatment Agency for Substance Misuse. There are interesting and useful examples of what works in drug treatment, as well as some challenges, including how to organise drug treatment in prison. We also need to look at why people offend in the first place—to look upstream, not just at the deltas referred to by the noble Lord, Lord Elton. The reason clearly lies in society. The Government have done much to support families and young people and some of those efforts have not yet lasted long enough for us to know whether they will have an impact on future offending. I refer to such initiatives as Sure Start and the ideas set out in the youth Green Paper. Perhaps the Minister can update the House on progress with the Green Paper. To cite the noble Lord, Lord Rosser, there is good, hard evidence that drug treatment works, as pointed out in a number of reports, including the Healthcare Commission report of 2006. It can improve health, reduce reoffending, reduce the risk of death through overdose or infection, including blood-borne viruses and improve social functioning. With focused initiatives from my agency, the number of people using drug treatment has risen by 113 per cent since 1998-99. Waiting times have decreased and staffing for services has increased. Of course, challenges remain. For example, only about half of drug users access treatment. Since March 2002, new funding from central Government has tripled. A clear focus on improvement with funding and monitoring can work. I hope that in the new drug strategy due next year, there will be a specific focus on prisons and reoffending. Frankly, healthcare in prisons leaves much to be remedied. Let us hope that its transfer to primary care trusts will improve matters, but vigilance and monitoring will be needed. There are clear success factors in drug treatment. Let me name one or two of them. Clients must be able to access treatment quickly and should be retained in treatment for at least 12 weeks. The client should be involved in the choice of treatment that he or she receives—be it residential, rehabilitation or a methadone maintenance script. There must be planned exits from treatment and improvements in integration into the community through housing, employment and support for the person who has either become drug-free or is on a maintenance system. As we know, for those in or leaving custody, those criteria are not always met, although I believe that more than 100 prisons now have structured drug treatment programmes. In addition, the drug interventions programme provides engagement in treatment and case management. In Nottinghamshire, for example, in 2003 it was estimated that 65 per cent of acquisitive crime was committed by drug-fuelled offenders. Under the drug intervention programme in Nottinghamshire, 73 per cent of clients have not reoffended since their initial contact, most of them for more than six months. We know that many people in prison are drug offenders or have mental health problems. The intensive resettlement and after-care provision scheme developed by the Youth Justice Board in 59 local authorities has significant potential to reduce the number of young people who return to custody. There will be an interim report on the scheme in March this year, which we await with interest. It is crucial that young people do not become trapped in a cycle of crime and deprivation. The drug rehabilitation requirement is a viable alternative to custody. It offers courts an intensive and effective vehicle to tackle the drug misuse and offending of many of the most serious and persistent drug-misusing offenders. There are risks related to treatment capacity and the robustness of funding arrangements for the integrated drug treatment for prisons—issues that we will need to watch. Interagency co-operation is vital. That is improving in many areas, but that improvement needs to be maintained to give seamless care to those in custody. Another issue which we emphasise at the National Treatment Agency is involving users and carers in developing treatment systems. I wonder how much offenders are engaged in developing the systems that they go through. I should be pleased to receive any information on that. Offending and reoffending are costly and demoralising. If people offend, they need to be able to rehabilitate through education, healthcare—including drug treatment—and through a pathway of care that will give them a place in society and out of the terrible cycle of reoffending.