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Why can’t we record crime accurately?
“It is not the force which pays the highest price of crime-recording failures, but those victims and the wider community to whom justice may be denied. This can be especially true for the vulnerable, and those who suffer more serious crimes. Failure properly to record crime today may not only fail today’s victims; it places others at risk of becoming victims tomorrow.”

Young People and Stop and Search
Y-STOP recently publicised a useful infographic showing information about the number of young people under 18 stopped and searched in the year up to March 2014. Just 11% of these stops led to arrests and the Metropolitan Police carried out 39% of all stop and searches on young people.

We still imprison too many people for using drugs
You can see from the table that 281 people were sent to prison for possessing a Class C drug (Anabolic steroids, benzodiazepines, GHB, GBL, piperazines (BZP), and khat) despite having no previous convictions and a further 212 who had just one previous – bear in mind that 30% of British men have a criminal conviction by the age of 30.
Fewer criminals but more prisoners
This latest set of MoJ statistics adds power to the recent argument made by Professor Sean McConville (With Lois Blom-Cooper) that if we really want prison reform, we have to sideline politicians and have a Royal Commission.

The end of the road for cautions?
Police officers will use their professional judgement to assess an offence, taking into account the wishes of the victim and the offender’s history, in order to reach an outcome which best meets the needs of the victim and of the public. Of course, many police services have been using these community resolutions

Women’s imprisonment across the world
We know that a large proportion of women in prison in England and Wales are drug dependent – 54% female remand prisoners were addicted to drugs in the year prior to being in prison. There is a parallel situation in the USA. Women are more than 50% more likely to be imprisoned for a drug crime than men (25.7% vs 17.2%).
Employ Russell
Russell has over 20 years’ experience as a researcher and consultant specialising in substance misuse and crime.
Prison, probation, police, substance misuse, commissioning & payment by results.
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