ABSTRACT
From the mid-1990s, the interconnections between drugs, crime, punishment and treatment became increasingly refined and reinforced within drugs policy. The so-called ‘drugs-crime link’ became the catalyst for the expansion and investment in drug treatment and testing at every point in the criminal justice process. Various surveys showed that problem drug users are more likely to have had contact with the criminal justice system than have the general population. For example, national estimates in 2005/6 indicated that 1 per cent of the general population aged 15-64 years in England could be classified as problem opiate and/or crack cocaine users (Hay et al. 2007). This compared to 13 per cent of the arrestee population who were dependent on heroin and 8 per cent who were dependent on crack in 2005/6 (Boreham et al. 2007). Similarly, high rates of problem drug use were also reported within the sentenced population with over one-third (39 per cent) of male prisoners and over a quarter (27 per cent) of men serving community sentences experiencing problematic drug use (Budd et al. 2005). For many of these problem drug users, the criminal justice system has now become the main gateway into drugs treatment and rehabilitation.
