Information on the number of persons found guilty at all courts for drug offences in England and Wales, 1997 to 2007 are contained in the following table.
These data are on the principal offence basis. The figures given in the table on court proceedings relate to persons for whom these offences were the principal offence for which they were dealt with. When a defendant has been found guilty of two or more offences, the offence selected is the one for which the heaviest penalty is imposed. Where the same disposal is imposed for two or more offences, the offence selected is the offence for which the statutory maximum penalty is the most severe.
Court proceedings data for 2008 will be available in the autumn of 2009.
Drug Offence Group Found guilty 1997 40,666 1998 48,821 1999 48,711 2000 44,621 2001 45,621 2002 49,036 2003 51,162 2004 39,197 2005 39,090 2006 39,582 2007 44,565 1 These data are on the principal offence basis. 2 Every effort is made to ensure that the figures presented are accurate and complete. However, it is important to note that these data have been extracted from large administrative data systems generated by the courts, and police forces. As a consequence, care should be taken to ensure data collection processes and their inevitable limitations are taken into account when those data are used. 3 Staffordshire police force were only able to supply a sample of data for magistrates courts proceedings covering one full week in each quarter for 2000. Estimates based on this sample are included in the figures, as they are considered sufficiently robust at this high level of analysis. Source: OCJR, E and A: Office for Criminal Justice Reform, Evidence and Analysis Unit.