At the national level, 20,934 Class A drug-misusing individuals in England and Wales were identified between 1 January 2008 and 31 March 2008 to form the national cohort.
?? During the 12 months following identification, individuals in the cohort were
convicted of a total of 54,462 proven offences. This equates to a baseline rate of
offending of 2.60 offences per individual.
?? Sixty-one per cent of the national cohort were convicted of at least one offence in the 12 months following identification. Twenty-five per cent were convicted of either one or two offences, while 16 per cent were convicted of more than five offences.
?? Comparing proven offending rates by different ways in which drug-misusing
offenders were initially identified reveals that those individuals identified as drug
misusers on release from prison and who also tested positive for Class A drugs on
arrest, had a rate of proven offending that was markedly higher than any other group of offenders in the cohort (5.59 proven offences per individual).
Source: Home Office ‘Drug Misusing Offenders Cohort 2008’ published March 2010