Having specialist courts that can impose treatment orders rather than prison sentences for those whose offending is related to substance addiction may be a cheaper option than a custodial sentence, but they will not address the issue of why so many desperate addicts are forced into criminal activity (Specialist courts proposed to break addictions of prolific offenders in England and Wales, 11 December).
In the UK, half of all recorded acquisitive crimes are drug-related – and half of all homicides. As long as the acts of procuring and using drugs remain illegal, desperate people will find themselves drawn into a spiral of criminal behaviour. Rather than adding an extra layer to the judiciary, a more cost-effective and humane option would be the decriminalisation of drug use – which has been proven to be effective in reducing harm and criminal activity.
Portugal, where harm reduction has been the focus of drug policy since 2001, has government-funded drug consumption spaces and the presumption that possession for personal use should not be illegal. The outcomes are remarkable. In the first 16 years of decriminalisation, overdose deaths fell from 369 a year to just 30, and the number of those incarcerated for drug-related offending dropped by more than 40% – despite the supplying of drugs still being illegal.
Stuart Harrington
Burnham-on-Sea, Somerset
• David Gauke’s proposals are to be welcomed. However, it has all been done before at the Wells Street family court in London in the 1990s, which was led by the wonderful Nicholas Crichton. He pioneered drug and alcohol courts where parents at risk of losing their children were regularly monitored and guided, which had an extraordinary impact by enabling children to stay with their birth families.
It was all destroyed when, in a money-saving review, many courts were closed, including Wells Street, and expertise lost.
Jane Lawson
London
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