Slough Borough Council: Drug Misuse and Crime

Drug Misuse and Crime

A Real Partnership

To work effectively, the programme brings together a wide range of organisations.

One of the key partners, Chief Superintendent Brian Langston, Area Commander of Slough and District police area said: "This gives us a real boost in our fight against drug related crime. Working with our partners means we can offer the necessary care and support to offenders to break the cycle of drugs, crime and prison. Ultimately, though, it is the community that benefits through reduced levels of crime"

Other partners include:

Thames Valley Probation
The courts, CPS and defence solicitors
The prison service - particularly at Bullingdon, Woodhill and Reading prisons
Statutory and voluntary providers of treatment services, including local PCTs, SMART, CASCADE, Addiction
Counselling Trust and Turning Point
Other "wraparound" services to support the drugs misusers when they finish their sentence or treatment - housing, training, employment, finance, education – known as aftercare
Local and regional government and agencies

Treatment works

Evidence shows that treatment works – not just residential treatment or methadone prescribing, but also a wide range of less intensive alternatives such as counselling.

Treatment is not a soft option, but it is an effective one.

The kinds of help that service users will get – either directly through CJIP, or via other existing treatment sources include:

Access to specialist drugs advice in police custody and courts, known as arrest referral
Access to rapid prescribing of substitutes
Structured daycare and counselling
Residential rehabilitation
Mentoring by previous users
A 24/7 phone number for help

The scheme will be run by the criminal justice substance misuse team, set up to case manage each service user, and provide a beginning to end support programme that follows and manages service users as they pass through the criminal justice system. This is one of the key improvements to the existing services.

The funding is provided by the Drugs Intervention Programme (DIP) to tackle drug-related crime. This important national programme takes advantage of opportunities within the criminal justice system for accessing drug-misusing offenders – many of which are difficult to access by other approaches – and moving them into treatment, away from drug use and crime.

To find out more, please go to the Tackling Drugs Government website