Claudio Cappuccino

Testi originali Febbraio 2002

10.02.2002

Met plan to extend softly, softly drug scheme
Relaxed attitude towards minor offenders during cannabis project in Lambeth saves police time and brings increase in arrests of dealers

Nick Hopkins, crime correspondent
Saturday February 9, 2002
The Guardian

Secret plans to roll out a controversial cannabis scheme across London are being drawn up after a study found it saved officers and staff in one borough more than 2,500 hours and led to a 19% increase in arrests of class A drug dealers, the Guardian can reveal.
A report into a six-month pilot project in Lambeth, south London, due to be published next week, will show that a more relaxed attitude to policing of the drug gave the borough the equivalent of two extra full-time officers.

Early analysis of a Mori poll of 2,000 people living in Lambeth has also shown that the community supports the scheme.

The full results of the poll, which was commissioned by the Police Foundation as part of its own review of the scheme, are expected to be revealed at the end of the month.

Encouraged by the findings, the Metropolitan police commissioner, Sir John Stevens, has asked a senior officer, deputy assistant commissioner Mike Fuller, to draw up plans for rolling out the scheme to boroughs across the capital.

The apparent success of the project and the favourable reaction of the community will also bolster the position of the home secretary, David Blunkett, who wants to press ahead with plans to reclassify cannabis from a class B to a class C drug. This will mean that the police lose the power to arrest people for simple possession.

Though the Police Federation said last month that the south London project was being abused by drug users who were flooding into the area, Lambeth's commander, Brian Paddick, is understood to be contempuous of the claim.

Fred Broughton, federation chairman, told a Home Office select committee that there was anecdotal evidence from officers to suggest that the scheme had not saved any time, yet the independent consultants who compiled the report on behalf of the Met will say next week that this is not supported by their findings.

All officers in Lambeth were asked to fill out a questionnaire about the scheme, but only 6% of the local force bothered to do so. Senior Met officers believe this shows that officers in Lambeth have few genuine concerns about the impact of the scheme.

The Met introduced the initiative in Lambeth last July to reduce the time spent processing minor cannabis offences so officers could focus efforts on tackling crack cocaine and other class A drug users and dealers.

Under the scheme, people caught with cannabis are given on-the-spot warnings, rather than being cautioned, arrested and possibly charged.

According to the study, a total of 1,350 hours of police officers' time were saved in six months. It estimates that three hours was saved every time a warning was issued instead of an arrest.

The report says that an additional 1,168 hours of police support staff time was saved by not having to process cannabis prosecutions through the borough's criminal justice unit.

The study found that officers seized more cannabis during the six months than they did in the same period the year before.

Police believe that the rise is due to the increase in the number of officers on the streets, and because the scheme offers "a practical alternative to arrest or turning a 'blind eye'."

The number of arrests for dealing cannabis rose by 11% "suggesting dealers found with larger amounts ... who are excluded from the warning scheme, may have been targeted by officers".

Some officers interviewed for the report were worried that the reduction in cannabis arrests meant that opportunities to gather intelligence on suspects, such as DNA samples and fingerprints, were being lost.

A draft document, leaked to the Guardian, says the Met will argue that it "has caught more people with cannabis, confiscated more cannabis and warned more people for cannabis than ever before".