Just one quarter of DTTOs are completed

Only one in four Drug Treatment and Testing Orders are
successfully completed by substance misusing offenders, according
to a report by parliament’s public accounts committee,
writes Craig Kenny.

Just 28% of 5,700 DTTOs that were terminated in 2003 had reached
full term or been revoked early because the offender had made good
progress, the report says.

However, this may be an overestimate, since there was evidence
from Leicestershire and London that these figures included a large
proportion of offenders whose orders technically expired although
they had been breached.

In 44 per cent of cases offenders breached their orders and had
them terminated, while for another 22 per cent the order was
stopped due to a conviction for another offence.

There was a wide variation between areas in the proportion of
offenders who completed their orders – from eight per cent in
Kent to 71 per cent in Dorset. However, the report notes that DTTOs
in Dorset ran for the minimum period of six months, whereas in most
areas they ran for at least a year.

Offenders who completed the full DTTO were much less likely to
re-offend – the reconviction rate was 53 per cent for those
who completed their orders, compared with 91 per cent for those who
did not.