This is a blog for the Mental Health Policy Class at the George Warren Brown School of Social Work.

March 20, 2008

Jail 'not the solution' to drug crime

Convicted drug users should not be sent to prison because it does more harm than good, a report from the influential UK Drug Policy Commission will say tomorrow. Up to 65,000 prisoners in England and Wales are thought to be problem drug users and, of these, two-thirds are convicted of less serious crimes such as shoplifting and burglary. The commission believes these offenders should not be jailed. Although the report accepts that almost a third of heroin and crack users arrested admit to committing an average of one crime a day, it says that community treatment programmes would be more effective than prison.

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