●● At the national level, 20,934 Class A drug-misusing individuals in England and Wales were identified between 1 January 2008 and 31 March 2008 to form the national cohort.

 

●● During the 12 months following identification, individuals in the cohort were

convicted of a total of 54,462 proven offences. This equates to a baseline rate of

offending of 2.60 offences per individual.

 

●● Sixty-one per cent of the national cohort were convicted of at least one offence in the 12 months following identification. Twenty-five per cent were convicted of either one or two offences, while 16 per cent were convicted of more than five offences.

 

●● Comparing proven offending rates by different ways in which drug-misusing

offenders were initially identified reveals that those individuals identified as drug

misusers on release from prison and who also tested positive for Class A drugs on

arrest, had a rate of proven offending that was markedly higher than any other group of offenders in the cohort (5.59 proven offences per individual).

 

Source: Home Office ‘Drug Misusing Offenders Cohort 2008’  published March 2010