Policing Drug Hot-Spots

The Policing and Reducing Crime Unit (PRC) was formed in 1998 as a result of the merger of the Police Research Group (PRG) and the Research and Statistics Directorate. PRC Unit is now part of the Research, Development and Statistics Directorate of the Home Office. The PRC Unit carries out and commissions research in the social and management sciences on policing and crime reduction, broadening out the role that PRG played. The PRC has now combined PRG's two main series into the Police Research Series, continuing PRG's earlier work. This will present research material on crime prevention and detection as well as police management and organisation issues. Research commissioned by PRG will appear as a PRC publication. Throughout the text there may be references to PRG and these now need to be understood as relating to the PRC Unit. Copies of this publication can be made available in formats accessible to the visually impaired on request. The Government strategy on drugs, Tackling Drugs to Build a Better Britain , emphasises the importance of tackling drug-dealing at the local level. This report builds on an earlier PRC study of local drug markets, which examined the scope for situational prevention methods for dealing with local drug markets – an approach which has proved effective in dealing with more conventional local crime problems. Drawing on studies and evaluations from both the USA and Britain, this report identifies six elements to successful initiatives aimed at disrupting local drug markets. It also highlights the importance of effective cooperation between the police and other agencies, supporting the emphasis on 'partnership' within the Government strategy on drugs, and reinforcing the role of Drug Action Teams, which have responsibility for coordinating action at a local level. Acknowledgements I am grateful to Barry Webb and Warwick Maynard of the Policing and Reducing Crime Unit for their assistance with drafting this report. Executive summar y The subject of this report is the application of situational crime prevention methods to the policing of local drug markets. In the context of the report, the term 'drug market' is used to refer to a location at which illicit drugs (of one or more kinds) are bought and sold; and 'situational crime prevention' refers to measures taken by the police and other agencies to modify the social and physical features of drug market sites in order to make them less attractive to dealers and …