HOPE AND HOPELESS

 Before being appointed to this job I was convinced in my own mind unfettered  by superior legal knowledge that the scourge of drug addiction could be successfully challenged only if its victims were deviated from the criminal justice system to a branch of the NHS.  Nothing has changed except that now I am not only convinced of the folly of not decriminalising illicit drug use   I await a government which is prepared to face the financial and social realities of not doing so.  This  latest report provides grounds for hope.

“ Proven reoffending statistics: January 2012 to December 2012” published today by the Ministry of Justice is likely to provide the opponents to the payment by results policy  for the new probation organisations  with considerable ammunition from the pilot schemes at Peterborough and Doncaster.