Drug offences: data release pre-announcement

On 29 July 2022, the Council will be publishing data collected from magistrates’ courts covering the factors taken into account when sentencing adult offenders for a selection of drug offences. These data were collected between November 2015 and January 2016 after the publication of the Council’s drug offences guidelines, which came into force in February 2012. The data collected were used in the drug offences guideline evaluation which was published in June 2018, and cover the offences of possession of a controlled drug (class A and B) and production of a controlled drug (class B only) or cultivation of cannabis plant, where these offences were the principal offence. This will be the second release of the Council’s bespoke targeted data collections that it has moved to undertaking since the cessation of the Crown Court Sentencing Survey, and follows the publication of the magistrates’ courts data collection on the offence of theft from a shop or stall in December 2020.