DDN_April_2024 DDN April 2024 | Page 8

kent . ac . uk

Alex Stevens is professor in criminal justice at the University of Kent . He was a member of the UK Advisory Council on the Misuse of Drugs from 2014 to 2019 , and president of the International Society for the Study of Drug Policy from 2015 to 2019 . Prof Stevens is currently leading the national diversion evaluation for the Cabinet Office , which will hopefully result in a recommended model next year that should inform and encourage police forces .

and Wales ( DDN , March 2023 , page 5 ). But while the latest OHID figures show more than 46,500 adults in drug and alcohol treatment in prisons and secure settings in 2022-23 , with 3 per cent year-on-year increases for the last two years , links with community treatment post-release can still leave a lot to be desired .

MENTAL HEALTH The same goes for prison-based mental health treatment . A 2021 report from the UK Parliament ’ s Justice Committee pointed out that while up to 70 per cent of the prison population were estimated to be suffering from mental health issues , only 10 per cent were receiving any treatment . Poor data collection meant that the true scale of the problem was unknown , but only likely to get worse , it said .

A huge number of those

mental health problems will of course be trauma-related , with people turning to drugs to self-medicate . ‘ Someone in recovery told me , “ You can ’ t recover unless you know what you ’ re recovering from ”,’ says Kew . ‘ And that trauma might take years of counselling . It ’ s not just a quick fix .’

A widespread shift to a more public health-based approach will of course mean fundamentally challenging parts of the wider culture in law enforcement , something that reflects his own journey .

‘ I joined the navy at 16 because I didn ’ t have any qualifications – the relevance of that is I had no critical thinking ,’ he says . ‘ I was just taught what I was taught and I joined the police with that mentality . In training I digested the law book , and I came out of training school like RoboCop – I was arresting so many people , and at first I didn ’ t really care too much about the impact of that . I was doing what I was employed to do .

‘ But then you see the harm that criminal justice can cause , the labelling , the stigma , the punitive approach in every part of the system . It was only when I got to know some of the people that I began to really understand trauma and addiction , that people are often self-managing serious trauma .

So it ’ s about treating human beings as human beings . It doesn ’ t matter about the past , it ’ s the future that counts . It ’ s about preparing and enhancing all the skills , social capital and recovery and everything else to help that individual into the community . Why do we have this fixation on prison ? Public health approaches work .’ DDN

Prison population projections : 2023 to 2028 at https :// www . gov . uk / government / statistics / prison-populationprojections-2023-to-2028

We looked at evidence for diversion schemes and decriminalisation around the world , as well as more local examples like Operation Turning Point in the West Midlands , which had a really good evidence base , Checkpoint in County Durham , and others , and we cherry-picked the learning , says Jason Kew . We needed to reduce deaths and reduce stigma , but we also needed to have an effective model – personally , I ’ d decriminalise overnight , but we had to be careful about what we were going to implement .

Not all my colleagues were keen so we had to go back to basics with the reasons why . Reducing deaths was simple – everybody got that – and people understood a public health approach to drugs . It was actually the process that was the most challenging , because we needed to make it as easy as possible for cops . When you ’ re a police officer you can

Until 2021 Jason Kew was detective chief inspector at Thames Valley Police and it was there that he helped to develop their successful diversion scheme .

be dealing with road traffic one minute , domestics the next , then missing kids , shoplifting – the demands are wide , so it was vital that we make it effective for the police .

So what we were able to do was find a mechanism within the law which enabled that , and that ’ s the community resolution . That precludes the need for an arrest , and we were able to then get the drug services to take over from the police on the street – so it ’ s the drug services that the person hears from next . And for many people it ’ s the first contact they ’ ve ever had with services , so it ’ s a game changer , it really is .

What we wanted to try to do was to give everybody who came into contact with the police an opportunity for some form of education or awareness , but that ’ s not one size fits all . You could have someone living on cardboard using spice who might not benefit too much from any kind of education around drug use at that point , but they might benefit from assertive outreach or connection with housing or benefits professionals , or some other kind of social capital .

So it was principally about education and awareness , but also an open door to harm reduction according to that person ’ s needs , and the drug services were really keen . We had a working group – as well as our partner Druglink we had our local commissioned services like CGL , Turning Point , Cranstoun . We had big national charities with lots of experience , which meant we were able to bring lots of people around the table , including people with lived experience who helped to shape it all . And that ’ s how we ended up with our scheme .

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