The merger of the Birmingham Drugs Action Team (Link) with the Community Safety Partnership has enhanced the group's ability to support and rehabilitate those offenders who are drug dependant.

Capabilities are developing all of the time as the group engages with new national Home Office initiatives such as the Drugs Intervention Programme (DIP), which identifies drug dependent offenders so that they can be offered drug treatment and the Prolific and Priority Offenders Programme.  As well as supporting interventions to prevent and deter young people from committing crime, this programme also strengthens the group's ability to catch and convict criminals and resettle and rehabilitate those offenders who want to exit a life of crime.

Main objectives of the group are to:

• Deliver locally, the national Prolific and Other Priority Offenders Strategy (link) and its three strands of Catch and Convict, Prevent and Deter and Rehabilitate and Resettle. This will identify and target those offenders who are the most prolific, the most persistently anti-social in their behaviour and those who pose the greatest threat to the safety and confidence of their local communities. The emphasis will be on a multi-agency approach towards tackling the problem with Police, Crown Prosecution Service, Prisons, Probation, Local Authority and locality based services working together, with Local Criminal Justice Board co-ordination, to catch, convict, monitor and manage these offenders in the community, or in custody, and work towards rehabilitating them.
• Monitor the delivery of the Prolific and other Priority Offenders strategy in accordance with the national performance management framework and Local Criminal Justice Board targets.
• Ensure effective support for the management and delivery of the Drugs Intervention Programme (DIP) and ensure that the targets outlined in the DIP Compact Performance Agreement to engage and support people throughout the treatment and support process are met.
• Implement the targets outlined in the National Drugs Strategy and Birmingham’s Local Treatment Plan to support the people with a drug dependency to manage and resolve their dependency and to reduce crime related to drug use.
• Support a Local Public Service Agreement to reduce drug related crime through increased access to treatment.