Drug use and enforcement has long been an area of controversy in many countries, with governments needing to strike a balance of relative impacts. Like other countries, the UK has begun to recognize that using the criminal justice system to combat drug use and possession is problematic; be it due to social harm (e.g., conviction records and incarceration) or the fact that it is not fiscally sustainable. For instance, people interacting with the UK justice system on drug offences make up 14% of the untried population in custody and 21% of those convicted but unsentenced in custody. Consequently, some localized jurisdictions in England have made an effort to divert some of the lowest-level offences, and particularly drug offenders, away from system sanctions. While diverting low-level drug offenders has generally been shown to help reduce such social and fiscal problems, drug poisoning (overdose) rates remain high. According to the Office of National Statistics, the UK has experienced 10 consecutive years of increase in the age-adjusted, drug overdose death rate, marked at 84.4 deaths per million (4,859 people) in 2022. With this context, some people question if diversion promotes drug use and is a missed opportunity for the justice system to act as an avenue to treatment. In an effort to gauge the aggregate impact of pre-arrest (police-led) diversion, we employ a synthetic control design in an interrupted time series analysis. Relying on quarterly data over the last 10 years from several policing areas in England, we compare jurisdictions that engaged in a systematic diversion effort (e.g., West Midlands) to those that did not, while controlling for multiple factors on which the jurisdictions may differ (e.g., police workforce size, unemployment, population). We discuss the detectable impact of pre-arrest diversion on key outcomes and implications regarding police reported crime, cautions, and prosecutions.

Justice-involved youth serving out-of-home placements are at an elevated risk of suffering from co-occurring mental health and substance abuse disorders, while also representing the group with the most serious and/or extensive criminal offending histories and a multitude of risk factors associated with continued delinquency. In the current study, we estimate the prevalence of co-occurring disorders among a multiyear, statewide sample of youth serving residential placements in the state of Florida. We examine whether these youth 1) received services that were appropriately matched to assessed dynamic risk factors, 2) were provided high-quality treatment, and 3) were provided treatment at empirically-derived dosages (contact hours over a specified number of weeks). We then assess whether meeting these targets was associated with reductions in dynamic risk during residential placement as well as reductions in subsequent delinquency among this highly policy-relevant group. Implications for research and juvenile justice policy are discussed.

Healthcare Professionals (HCPs) are commonly embedded within police custody suites to work alongside Custody Sergeants and Detention Officers to ensure the safety of persons detained therein (detainees). HCPs rely on Patient Group Directives (PGDs) as guidance for what medications are safe to provide to detainees without needing to seek out additional approval from a Forensic Medical Examiner. The provision of HCPs is commissioned by police forces under a tendering process, with private companies competing to deliver healthcare services. One consequence of this commissioning process is that there is no standard PGD and different companies have varying medications in their offering resulting in a postcode lottery around whether a detainee will receive the therapeutic intervention they need.

One key area where this differentiation of PGDs was seen to have significant impact was in the provision of Methadone to detainees on a rehabilitation programme. At least one company considered that the risk of issuing methadone, even to those who have it prescribed, was too high and would not allow HCPs to provide it. Interviews with HCPs indicate this decision was based on the stigma that the detainee population was “drug-seeking” and so providing methadone would likely result in an overdose. Unfortunately, being detained for a lengthy period of time (for instance over a weekend), can result in them being removed from a treatment programme. Many ex-detainees interviewed stated that after leaving custody they had little option but to access illicit drugs, thereby resituating the ex-detainee back within criminal networks. In this paper, based on interviews, ethnography and risk assessment analysis, we will argue that the bodies responsible for commissioning healthcare delivery in police custody need to be tougher on the healthcare providers and should develop a standard PGD in order to remove the postcode lottery, especially in relation to methadone.

In 2012 McPhee et al., discussed the role of police witness drug experts interpretating the UK Misuse of Drugs Act 1971, which led to anomalies in conviction rates for drug dealing and drug trafficking in Scotland compared to the other nations in the United Kingdom. Anomalies that could not be fully explained without examining the role of drug squad officers (STOP) acting as Crown (PF) experts in solemn cases involving drug crimes (McPhee et al, 2012).
Building on this work, McPhee explores the role of the drug expert witness (EW) in criminal cases to document his lived experience of acting as an expert witness over 23 years, preparing reports and giving evidence in High Court and Sherrif Courts throughout Scotland.
This paper questions the positionality of the STOP Officers (in Scotland STOP Officers prepare reports for the Procurator Fiscal (PF), and the role and function of the STOP officers who draft reports for the PF, and upon whose recommendations the PF relies on to take a prosecution forward. As Sutton (2012) notes:
"… the notion of using individuals as experts with a connection, by employment status or affiliation to the prosecution to provide EW testimony under a declaration of neutrality has the inherent capacity to undermine the independence of the justice testimony" Sutton, 2012).
This paper provides a phenomenological ethnographic perspective to examine the role and function of the drug expert witness to explore the conflicts of interest at play that could be counter to the notions of justice in the Scottish criminal justice system.
References
McPhee, I., Martin, C.R. and Sneider, A. (2012), "Exploring the consequences of how Scotland interprets the UK Misuse of Drugs Act 1971", Drugs and Alcohol Today, Vol. 12 No. 3, pp. 146-156. https://doi.org/10.1108/17459261211263433
Sutton, G. (2012), "Partial confessions of an expert court witness: https://doi.org/10.1108/17459261211235128