Monday, October 24, 2005

Testing times / Holyrood Issue 133, 24 )ct 2005

http://www.holyrood.com/nav/publications/magazine/issue138/content.aspx?content=feature05
A look into mandatory fdrug testing - That illegal drugs are one of the driving forces behind the majority of crime in Scotland is common knowledge. Exact figures are hard to come by - largely because there are no universally agreed definitions of what constitutes drug-related crime - but the Executive estimates that 70 per cent of all crime has some drug-related aspect. Now, with the new Police, Public Order and Criminal Justice (Scotland) Bill, the Executive is positioning itself to not only determine with greater accuracy the extent of drug-related crime in Scotland but also to try to identify offenders and provide targeted interventions as early as possible.