The FINANCIAL — Drug possession should be removed from police performance indicators to encourage officers to spend more time solving serious crime rather than targeting low level possession of cannabis, according to a new LSE study.
The paper follows a recent pledge by Durham, Derbyshire, Dorset and Surrey police forces that they will no longer actively pursue cannabis smokers in order to prioritise resources against more serious crime, according to LSE.
Dr Michael Shiner, Associate Professor in LSE’s Department of Social Policy, analysed official crime statistics in relation to the controversial and short-lived reclassification of cannabis in England and Wales in 2004 – the most significant liberalisation of British drug law in more than 30 years. The drug was downgraded from Class B to C following recommendations from the Independent Inquiry into the Misuse of Drugs Act and support from the Home Affairs Select Committee. David Blunkett, the Home Secretary at the time, said it would free up police resources to tackle harder drugs and more serious crime. However, the reclassification was reversed in 2009 following a media backlash and a pre-election pledge from Tony Blair. Professor David Nutt, who was sacked as chair of the Advisory Council on the Misuse of Drugs, complained that scientific evidence had been distorted and the law on cannabis had been reversed for political reasons.
Dr Shiner, in a paper published in the International Journal of Drug Policy, shows how, paradoxically, the initial reclassification led to an intensification of police efforts targeting minor possession because officers were given new powers to issue formal on-the-spot street warnings and penalty notices rather than having to take them to a police station for lengthy processing. This resulted in a sharp increase in the number of people given sanctions for minor possession offences. Recorded offences have continued to increase despite rates of self-reported use falling.
Key findings:
The number of cannabis possession offences recorded by police almost doubled between 2004/5 and 2011/12 while rates of self-reported use fell by more than a quarter.
The number of stop-searches for all drugs more than doubled between 2000/1 and 2010/11, with most of this increase occurring after the initial reclassification of cannabis. This represents an increase from a third to a half of all stop-searches, at the expense of stolen goods which accounted for around two-fifths of stop-searches in 2000/1 but only one-fifth in 2010/11.
The research explains: “The inclusion of cannabis warnings as a sanction detection created a fast-track to achieving targets at a time when police performance was under considerable government scrutiny.”
It adds that most officers on the ground did not approve of the reclassification because it threatened their authority by potentially removing power of arrest. It explains: “The police service in England and Wales is, after all, famously ‘reform resistant’ and has been uniquely able to ‘undermine, frustrate, withstand, invert and deny’ externally imposed change agendas.”
It goes on: “Many otherwise law-abiding, mainly young, people are still being criminalised to the detriment of their future; and drug policing continues to be disproportionately targeted at minority ethnic communities.”
It concludes: “On a more optimistic note, the introduction of cannabis street warnings has inadvertently shown that police behaviour is malleable and responds to incentives. Perhaps the best administrative decision that could be made in the short-term is to remove drug possession from police performance indicators. Then we might get a police service that concentrates on crimes that cause most harm.”
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