Prisons: Drugs
(asked on 19th December 2023) - View Source
Question to the Ministry of Justice:
To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, how many random mandatory drug tests were carried out in prisons in each year between 2019 and 2023 inclusive.
Data relating to random mandatory drug tests is published online in the HMPPS Annual Digest. The table below provides the total number of tests in each year between 2019 and 2023 inclusive.
Number of random mandatory drug tests in England and Wales April 2018 - March 2023 | |||||
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| April 2018 - March 2019 | April 2019 - March 2020 | April 2020 - March 2021 | April 2021 - March 2022 | April 2022 - March 2023 |
Number of tests | 54,242 | 54,047 | 4,738 | 12,396 | 41,308 |
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Source: Contracted MDT testing laboratory |
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From March 2020 to April 2021 rMDT target levels were suspended due to the Covid-19 restrictions placed upon prison regimes. The increase in testing levels during March 2022 to March 2023 is associated with the re-introduction of the target levels and changes in regime following the pandemic.
Data Sources and Quality |
Care is taken when processing and analysing returns but the detail is subject to the inaccuracies inherent in any large scale recording system. Although shown to the last case, the figures may not be accurate to that level. |
This does not include tests that were spoilt or lost in transit on the way to the laboratory. |
Please see below the links to the annual digests from each year:
2018/2019: HMPPS Annual Digest 2018 to 2019 - GOV.UK (www.gov.uk)
2019/2020: HMPPS Annual Digest: April 2019 to March 2020 - GOV.UK (www.gov.uk)
2020/2021: HMPPS Annual Digest, April 2020 to March 2021 - GOV.UK (www.gov.uk)
2021/2022: HMPPS Annual Digest, April 2021 to March 2022 - GOV.UK (www.gov.uk)
2022/2023: HMPPS Annual Digest, April 2022 to March 2023 - GOV.UK (www.gov.uk)
Data for April to December 2023 is not included because it is subject to future publication as part of the 2023-24 Annual Digest.