Drugs: Crime

Mr. Milburn
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department what his estimate is of the number and proportion of offences that were drug-related in (a) Darlington, (b) County Durham and (c) England in each of the last five years.

Mr. Coaker
The information requested is not available. Data collected centrally on recorded crime do not identify whether any offences (other than drug offences as defined by law) are drug related. The recorded crime series does include the number of specific drug offences and these are given in the following table.

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|          |Number of offences|
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|Darlington|229               |
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|Durham    |1,317             |
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|England   |111,968           |
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|                                                                                                                                        |2002-03|2003-04|2004-05|2005-06|
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|Darlington                                                                                                                              |211    |220    |230    |302    |
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|Durham                                                                                                                                  |1,289  |1,205  |1,062  |1,299  |
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|England                                                                                                                                 |130,825|131,551|133,140|165,842|
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|Note:The National Crime Recording Standard was introduced in April 2002. Figures before and after that date are not directly comparable.|       |       |       |       |
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