By Professor John Robertson OBA

The emphasis of a DTTO is on drugs treatment as the primary means of reducing offending behaviour rather than the specific offence focused approach of a probation order. Specifically the objectives of a DTTO are to:

• Reduce or eliminate an offender’s dependency or propensity to misuse drugs;

• Achieve positive changes in the scale and frequency of drug related offending

The Order introduces unique aspects e.g. drug testing and regular court reviews as features of a community disposal.

The DTTO is a high tariff, highly invasive community disposal involving social work supervision. The order requires regular assessment and reporting to the court, to enable the sentencer to review progress.¹

As you can see, in the above charts, the need for such orders to be imposed by courts has plummeted by 46% since 2019 and the success of those imposed has surged to 51%.

This trend combined with the dramatic reductions in drug-related hospital admissions³, suggests optimism for the longer term prospects in Scotland’s drug problems and will, of course, be invisible to our MSM.

Sources:

1. https://www.gov.scot/binaries/content/documents/govscot/publications/advice-and-guidance/2011/07/drug-treatment-and-testing-orders-guidance/documents/drug-treatment-and-testing-orders-guidance-for-schemes/drug-treatment-and-testing-orders-guidance-for-schemes/govscot%3Adocument/Drug%2BTreatment%2Band%2BTesting%2BOrders.pdf
2. https://www.gov.scot/publications/justice-social-work-statistics-scotland-2023-24-part-2/
3. https://www.publichealthscotland.scot/publications/drug-related-hospital-statistics/drug-related-hospital-statistics-scotland-2022-to-2023/