COURTS TO SPARE ADDICTS

CRIMINALS who use drugs are to be sent into rehabilitation centres rather
than prison as part of a government drive to halve the rate of reoffending
among addicts, writes RACHEL SYLVESTER.

Jack Cunningham, the Cabinet Office minister, will announce - in a Commons
statement on Tuesday - tough new targets for cutting crimes committed by
drug users as part of a drive to tackle the wide-ranging social effects of
narcotics. He will say that the Government aims to reduce addicts'
reoffending by a quarter by 2005 and by a half by 2008.

Judges will be encouraged to send offenders for treatment rather than to
jail, as ministers believe that many soft-drug users move onto harder
substances while in prison.

Tony Blair will say that the policy - which has been piloted around the
country - is designed to "break the terrible cycle of drugs and crime which
blights so many lives".

New research shows that about a third of 14-year-olds have experimented
with illegal substances and the majority of 16-year-olds say they have been
offered drugs.

Home Office findings, to be published this week, show a clear correlation
between drug abuse and crime. The research, conducted by Keith Hellawell,
the Government's drugs "czar", shows that drug addicts are responsible for
30 per cent of all crimes, but only 20 per cent had received any treatment
for addiction. It found that heroin and cocaine addicts generally earn
between UKP10,000 and UKP20,000 a year from crime.

Ministers believe that drug treatment orders - through which addicts are
sent for counselling rather than to jail - have been successful in trials
and have decided to roll out the programme nationally from April.

George Howarth, the Home Office minister, said yesterday that the
Government wanted to take a flexible approach to the problem. "The courts
[have] an option to say to young people or anyone involved in drugs and
crime, get off drugs and we can work with you," he told the BBC. "The other
option might be prison."