From criminalisation to harm reduction? The forms and functions of police drug diversion in England and Wales

ABSTRACT

While drugs policing often involves enforcement interventions that seek to tackle drug offences and drug-related crime through criminal sanctions, it is becoming increasingly apparent that diversion now occupies a central position in police responses to people suspected of either simple possession or an offence related to their drug use. This article draws on findings from a qualitative study of police-led schemes in England and Wales to examine police perspectives on diversion, the rationales behind its various forms, and the problems it is designed to resolve. By giving a voice to the key police actors behind recent local initiatives, interview data reveals that the harmful impacts of criminal sanctions are a significant driver of schemes that divert people away from the criminal justice system and into support services. It is argued that the new wave of police drug diversion is a reaction against criminal justice interventions that emphasise punishment. Police drug diversion is conceptualised as a form of harm reduction policing that has the potential to reduce the adverse consequences of drug use, drug markets, and efforts to control them through the criminal justice system. A further important dimension of the present contribution concerns what diversion signifies about the police mission and broader trajectories in contemporary policing. Police drug diversion is situated within wider organisational shifts towards public health approaches to policing which aim to prevent crime and improve life chances by tackling unmet health, social and economic needs.

KEYWORDS:

• drugs policing
• diversion
• criminalisation
• harm reduction
• public health

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Notes

1 Similar definitional issues have been raised about the muddled meaning of diversion in the context of youth justice (Kelly and Armitage 2015).

2 Part 6 of the Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Act 2022 has introduced a new two-tier system for OOCDs, consisting of ‘diversionary cautions’ and ‘community cautions’. The reform removes ‘simple’ cautions, PNDs and cannabis/khat warnings from the police toolkit. However, police may choose to continue to use community resolutions for low-level offences.

3 Ethics approval was provided by the University of Sheffield (Reference Number 018870).

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by British Academy/Leverhulme Trust: [Grant Number SG171537].