Staffordshire Police

Staffordshire Police's strategy for tackling drugs reflects government plans and is a key part of the force's overall corporate strategy.

At its heart lies 'Tackling Drugs to Build a Better Britain' the Government's long-term approach to building a healthy and confident society, free from the damage and destruction caused by drug misuse.

It has four focus areas:

• young people - helping young people resist drug misuse and achieve their full potential in society
• communities - protecting communities from drug-related, anti-social and criminal behaviour 
• treatment - enabling people with drug problems to overcome them and live healthy and crime free lives
• availability - stifling the availability of drugs on our streets.

Working in partnership

Although the police play a major role in enforcing drug misuse legislation, many positive interventions in the cycle of drug misuse are made by education and health services.

Staffordshire Police believes that working in partnership with other statutory and voluntary agencies to tackle drugs is vital to long-term success. Within the Staffordshire county council area this local partnership approach is co-ordinated by a Drug Action Team (DAT). The safer city partnership takes this role in Stoke-on-Trent.

At national level the police work with the Action Against Drugs Unit (AADU) which provides inter-departmental co-ordination, helps fund projects and monitors the effectiveness of DATs.

Staffordshire Police is committed to being a significant partner in the fight against drugs and will work towards allocating one per cent of its budget to partnership based approaches.

The CREDENCE strategy

Staffordshire Police's Drug Strategy has eight action areas summarised by the acronym CREDENCE:

Cautioning
Referral
Education
Disruption
Enforcement
News/Media
Clubs/Pubs
Earnings/Assets

What does CREDENCE aim to achieve?

Cautioning - a consistent approach to cautioning offenders.

Referral - enforcement alone cannot remove a person's addiction to drugs. By referring more offenders to treatment services at the earliest stages of their addiction we can help break the cycle of misuse and criminal behaviour.

Education - this is not just about schools and the pupils who attend them. It's important that parents and other community members know the facts about drugs and drug misuse so they can make valued judgements about the issues involved. By improving the understanding of drug misuse and its consequences, we aim to suppress the demand for drugs.

Disruption/Enforcement

• effective enforcement of drugs legislation, especially laws involving heroin
• reducing distribution opportunities in Staffordshire by seizing drugs supplies or preventing them from reaching local dealers by disrupting or dismantling wider drug networks. 
• reducing the level of street dealing and drugs availability in communities.

News/media

• a co-ordinated partnership approach to press and media coverage on drugs related issues 
• providing accurate factual information on drugs
• positively promoting the work of Staffordshire Police and its partners

Clubs/pubs

To achieve a safe drug-free environment we aim to tackle the problem of 'recreational' drugs, by policing and supervising clubs and pubs.

Earnings/assets

We aim to increase the assets identified, confiscated and recovered from drug trafficking and money laundering. By seizing dealers' assets, deter their future involvement in the drugs trade.