Study reveals widespread inconsistencies in policing of cannabis on the streets

The picture of widespread inconsistencies in the treatment of cannabis possession offences emerges from a unique street-level study for the Joseph Rowntree Foundation, based on hours of observing what happens ‘on the beat’ as well as interviews with police and those they arrest. It finds that the chances of being arrested depend on the force areas where an offence is discovered and on the experience and attitudes of individual officers.

The report concludes that the plans announced by David Blunkett, the Home Secretary, to remove police powers of arrest for possession by reclassifying cannabis as a Class ‘C’ drug will produce some cost and efficiency savings. The loss of a very small number of cannabis arrests that lead to serious offences being detected would be readily offset by more effective use of police time. However, the main benefits of reclassification would be non-financial, flowing from the removal of a significant source of friction between police and, mostly, young people who are currently arrested.

Researchers from the Criminal Policy Research Unit at London’s South Bank University carried out fieldwork in four contrasting districts covered by two different police forces. They also analysed data from national police and court statistics and from the Home Office British Crime Survey. They found that:

• One in seven known offenders in England and Wales were arrested for cannabis possession - nearly 70,000 offenders in 1999. Almost six out of ten offences result in a caution rather than prosecution. The number of possession offences has undergone a tenfold increase since the mid-1970s, but there is no evidence of this being an intended policy consequence.
• Three out of four arrests are for ‘simple possession’ of cannabis and no other offences. The fieldwork found they often resulted from police using ‘stop and search’ powers where suspicions about more serious offences proved unfounded, but cannabis was discovered.
• A third of officers in the case study areas said they always arrested those they found in possession of cannabis. There was evidence of ‘specialisation’ with 3 per cent of officers who made any arrests for possession accounting for 20 per cent of the total. Arrests for possession were also used as a way of helping probationary constables to ‘learn the ropes’.
• Two out of three officers had dealt with cannabis informally at some stage in their career. The authors judged that many had effectively ‘decriminalised’ cannabis in their everyday working practices.
• Some police said they used possession arrests as a ‘door opener’ for other offences. However, additional offences that came to light were almost all relatively minor. Analysis of over 30,000 custody records found 857 cases where cannabis possession had been the initial offence - of these, only 11 cases led to charges for serious crimes such as burglary, robbery, drug supply or firearms offences.
• While some young people stopped by police felt the officers were ‘simply doing their job’, others felt they had been needlessly victimised and that officers had been rude and aggressive. Analysis of British Crime Survey data on contact with police found 57 per cent of non-cannabis users who felt fairly treated compared with 28 per cent of users.
• Although it is difficult to assess accurately, the study estimates the costs of policing cannabis in England and Wales as at least £38 million a year, absorbing the equivalent of 500 police officers working full-time.

Prof. Mike Hough, co-author of the report, said: “The level of financial savings from making cannabis a class ‘C’ drug will depend on the alternative arrangements put in place for dealing with possession and their knock-on effects on informal warnings and on stop and search. The non-financial benefits could be large since reclassification is likely to remove some of the friction between police and communities that currently hinders co-operation in tackling more serious crime.”

He added: “A lighter enforcement regime is, in our view, unlikely to lead to significant growth in the number of young people who use cannabis. Even if an increase did take place, the best evidence suggests that it would not result in increased use of more harmful drugs.”