Arrest referral scheme extended

Scottish Executive agrees funding for drug addiction treatment schemes until 2008

News, 25 July 2006

An arrest referral scheme aimed at reducing reoffending among drug misusers by offering them treatment for addiction on their release from custody has been extended.

The Scottish Executive has increased the amount of funding available so that the existing schemes running in Glasgow, Renfrewshire, Tayside, Dumfries and Galloway, Lanarkshire and Edinburgh can continue up until 2008. The money will also fund a new scheme in Aberdeen.

Referral takes place in police cells or court premises where drug workers provide offenders with information about the services available to them and assess their suitability for treatment.

Contact can then be made with relevant organisations to try to find a treatment place that the offender can take up once criminal proceedings are concluded and they are released from custody.

Funding will be provided to allow the scheme to be rolled out across Glasgow, where it currently operates out of only one police station.

Additional national funding totalling £600,000 is also being made available to increase the provision of treatment places needed to support arrest referral work.

Between February 2004 and December 2005, a total of 2,791 people consented to referral into appropriate services. The evaluation found that 84% of arrestees who took part said they would recommend it.

The study also found that pilots were successful in reaching arrestees with substance misuse problems, and that most arrestees were referred on to treatment services.

Deputy Justice Minister Hugh Henry said: "For minor offenders arrest referral offers an early opportunity to turn their lives around - an opportunity to get offenders into treatment earlier and quicker, and reduce their offending."