UK launches innovative ‘problem-solving courts’ to tackle drug and alcohol related crime
The UK’s Ministry of Justice (MoJ) has opened three “innovative” new courts specifically for those with substance abuse problems, as part of its £900m plan to tackle drug and alcohol related crime.
The new “problem-solving courts” – in Liverpool, Teesside, and Birmingham – will provide services including rehabilitation services and housing support, in a bid to turn drug abusers away from crime.
The courts will seek to use community sentences paired with intensive support services, instead of jail, for those convicted of low-level crimes.
Justice secretary Dominic Raab said the innovative courts will help the UK “grasp the nettle of drug addiction” by helping offenders “turn their backs on crime.”
“Getting criminal offenders sustainably off drugs is the gateway to getting them into work and a law-abiding future,” Raab said.
The new courts will use a system of rewards and sanctions to push drug and alcohol users away from crime.
The plan comes as part of the government’s £900m 10-year “Drug Strategy”, which it launched last April with a view to cutting demand for drugs, strengthening the UK’s treatment and recovery system, and breaking drug supply chains.
The strategy comes as UK government figures show more people die from drug abuse in the UK than from all knife crime and road traffic accidents combined. In turn, drug abuse costs the UK taxpayer more than £20bn a year, the government’s figures show.
The plans come as the UK government is seeking to cut the crown court backlog as more than 58,000 cases are still waiting to be heard in the UK’s Crown Courts.