UK - Drug trafficking convictions fall under 'Britain's FBI'

[Lunar Loops]

Now, this could have gone into Drug News or even Law & Order, but I feel it illustates perfectly the futility of the UK government's current strategy towards drugs.

This from The Telegraph (article link):

Drug trafficking convictions fall under 'Britain's FBI'
Convictions for drugs trafficking have fallen by a quarter under the body set up to tackle organised crime gangs, figures show.

By Christopher Hope, Home Affairs Editor
Last Updated: 6:00PM BST 17 Sep 2008

Figures show that the Serious Organised Crime Agency achieved 243 convictions in 2007-08 for drug trafficking, a 27 per cent fall compared to the 309 convictions under its predecessor the National Crime Squad in 2005/06.

The disappointing performance comes despite the body boasting a budget of £452million and 4,000 staff and spending more than half of its time trying to tackle class A drugs crimes.

There was also a similar poor showing last year in 2006/07 when SOCA - described as the "British FBI" - only achieved 236 convictions for drug trafficking offences.

Over the same period, recorded drugs offences as logged by the police jumped from 178,000 to 229,000 in England and Wales.

The Tories said that the poor performance was at odds with comments from Home Secretary Jacqui Smith who boasted in Parliament in January "we have seized record amounts of drugs, disrupting and dismantling organised drug trafficking groups".

Shadow home secretary Dominic Grieve said: "The government set up SOCA amid great fanfare, with the pledge to sharply improve its performance in the fight against organised crime.

"Yet these figures show that despite drug trafficking being SOCA's number one priorty - the number of people convicted has actually fallen by a quarter since it was established.

"This situation is symbolic of Labour's wider failures to combat the scourge of drugs. In the last ten years drug offences are up by two-thirds yet the proportion of dealers facing jail has fallen.

"It shows yet again why - when it comes to drugs - Labour are part of the problem not the solution."

Earlier this year SOCA was said to be in "turmoil'' after its senior officers attacked the "Spanish practices'' and "disgraceful'' behaviour of some of their own staff.

The body's chairman Sir Stephen Lander, disclosed that they had been forced to clamp down on the practice of some staff ramping up their overtime hours.

A report from the independent UK Drugs Commission also said that police and customs are fighting a losing battle against the illegal drug trade despite billions of pounds being spent every year on fighting it.

The UK Drugs Commission found that traditional crime-fighting tactics are simply not working and that the £ 5.3 billion British drug market was "too fluid'' for law enforcement agencies to deal with.

Sources said SOCA had been “set a different task to its precursors, and is working in new and different ways to undermine criminal markets and deliver a reduction in the harm caused to the UK by organised crime”.

A spokesman for SOCA said: “SOCA’s purpose is to reduce the harm caused to the UK by serious organised crime and our success is not measured by numbers of UK convictions alone.

“It is the quality of the convictions that count, and a small number of key convictions can have a greater impact than a large number against less significant players.”