The Mayor’s Office for Policing and Crime (MOPAC) has given £67,677 funding to the London Borough of Bexley to cut drug-related crime through a drug intervention programme for offenders.
The grant is part of the new London Crime Prevention Fund – an £18 million pot that the Mayor’s Office for Policing and Crime (MOPAC) has allocated to help boroughs tackle crime.
The aim of the project is to ensure that more of the borough’s substance abusers are proactively engaged and are helped to rehabilitate. The project comes as latest figures from the London Borough of Bexley show that 48 per cent of criminals arrested in the borough use drugs and the conviction rate for drug offences, burglary and robbery are significantly higher amongst drug users. The grant will cover drugs intervention workers who will be responsible for working with all offenders in the borough who test positive for Class A drugs
Stephen Greenhalgh, the Deputy Mayor for Policing and Crime, said: “The London Crime Prevention Fund is an important way for us to work with boroughs to prevent crime and reduce the number of victims. The Mayor’s manifesto aims to reduce neighbourhood crime in the capital 20 per cent by 2016, and projects like this one in Bexley play an absolutely vital role in achieving this.”
Cllr Don Massey, Bexley’s Cabinet lead for community safety, said: “We are committed to playing our part in reducing drug and alcohol related crime by ensuring that more substance misusing offenders are identified and engaged in treatment for their addiction.
“We are working in partnership with other key agencies - including the police and local treatment providers - to address issues identified by local residents, such as drug and alcohol-related violence and we will ensure that treatment is an option for those arrested for these offences.”
In addition to tackling drug-related crime and reducing reoffending, the London Crime Prevention Fund is also supporting projects across boroughs aimed at tackling gangs and reducing violence against women and girls. Each borough will receive at least the same amount of funding as they were granted in the previous funding round. In many cases, for the first time ever, funding has been agreed for four years to provide more stability and enable smaller organisations to plan in this time of economic uncertainty.
Key aims for the Drugs Intervention Programme:
1. 50 per cent of offenders testing positive for Class A drugs will be engaged in structured treatment and commence a treatment programme by March 2014.
2. 20 per cent of those commencing structured treatment will have a planned exit from treatment by March 2014.
3. By the end of March 2014, 100 per cent of those referred to DIP from prison will be picked up and engaged in the Drugs Intervention Programme.
Bexley has been granted MOPAC funding for all the following initiatives:
London Crime Prevention Fund:
The London Crime Prevention Fund was created in 2013 to ensure there is a single pot of money available to local authorities to tackle the crime issues most prevalent in their area. All boroughs were eligible for at least the same level of funding they received under the previous Home Office, Community Safety Fund. Significantly MOPAC have committed to funding for four years in order to maximise the impact of individual projects and to provide stability for providers on the ground.