Saves Time and Money but Inconsistencies Remain

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Published: 31 January 2007

Saves Time and Money but Inconsistencies Remain

Despite police guidance to issue street warnings for most cannabis possession offences since its downgrading from Class B to C in 2004, a new study has shown major inconsistencies in how the drug is being policed.

In a report compiled by the Institute for Criminal Policy Research for the Joseph Rowntree Foundation, researchers found the proportion of street warnings in four police areas varied from 22% to 42%.

The decision to arrest or issue a street warning depended on factors such as the:

· views of the officer

· amount of cannabis found

· attitude of the offender, and

· local policy

The study looked at the impact of reclassification in 2004 on cannabis policing, focusing on the new practice of issuing street warnings for possession, instead of making arrests.

It also captured views of the police and young people about the changes.

Despite having a legal duty to arrest 16- and 17-year-olds, almost half of interviewed officers wanted to police them in the same way as adults.

One police officer interviewed for the study said:

“It just seems a bit unfair for a 16-year-old to get nicked for it and an 18-year-old in the same group to get a slap on the wrist and that’s it.”

In some police force areas, the issuing of street warnings appeared to be driven by pressure from senior officers to meet targets for the number of “offences brought to justice”.

People from black and minority ethnic groups in the four sites in the study were over-represented in the arrest and street warning statistics for cannabis possession.

Report author Mike Hough said:

“When cannabis was reclassified as a Class C drug, guidelines were issued advising officers to give street warnings for most possession offences, arresting only in aggravating circumstances.

We found that street warnings were issued for under half of possession offences.

Over half of officers were against the downgrading and many said that cannabis arrests often led to the detection of more serious crimes. In fact, we found that this occurred in less than one per cent of cases.”

Officers in busy urban sites had a better understanding of cannabis policing than those working in the quieter areas who dealt with such offences less frequently.

Nearly all the officers said that they had dealt with a member of the public who believed – or claimed to believe – that cannabis had been legalised.

Rough estimates for the first year of street warnings suggest that cannabis reclassification had saved over £3.5m of police money and over 250,000 officer hours across the 43 forces of England and Wales.

The researchers concluded that policy on policing cannabis should follow three principles:

· effective monitoring of the policing of cannabis offences, with some form of independent scrutiny

· close scrutiny of the impact of cannabis policing on black & ethnic minority groups, to ensure even-handed treatment

· keeping a close watch on the way in which performance management targets affect the policing of cannabis

Further information

Policing cannabis as a Class C drug: an arresting change? by Tiggey May, Martin Duffy, Hamish Warburton and Mike Hough

Findings

JRF Drug and Alcohol series

Institute for Criminal Policy Research

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