Question to the Ministry of Justice:

To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, how many people were (a) prosecuted and (b) cautioned for cannabis possession offences in each police authority area in each of the last two years.

As per your previous question (PQ 157684 from 27/06/2018), data is available up to December 2017, and data for the year ending December 2018 will be published in May. Therefore, the response is the same as before:

(a) The number of people prosecuted for cannabis possession in each police authority has been published up to December 2017 and can be found in the ‘Court Outcomes by Police Force Area data tool’, available at the following link: https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/733996/court-outcomes-by-pfa-2017-update.xlsx

Select court type: ‘02: Magistrates Court’

Select offence: ’92E.01 Possession of a controlled drug - Class B (cannabis)’ and ‘92E.02 Possession of a controlled drug – Class C (cannabis)’ in the ‘Offence’ filter. The number of people proceeded against by police force area can be found in the table.

(b) The number of people cautioned for cannabis possession in each police authority can be found in the table attached.