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Abstract

There are significant harms associated with drugs markets in England and Wales including serious violence, exploitation and death from drug misuse. Government drug policy endorses the denial and seizure of criminal revenue from these markets (asset recovery) as a means to reduce the supply of illegal drugs. However there are a lack of dedicated studies that specifically focus on the impact of asset recovery on drug supply. The aim of this study is to assess the use of asset recovery in England and Wales in preventing illegal drug supply. A narrative literature review was conducted of academic studies, policy documents and grey reports published from 2002 as well as original sources cited by those works. The review found that asset recovery is intended to support crime prevention through its deterrent and disruptive roles and rational choice theory is used to justify its preventative effects. Official success measures were not found to be robust as they compared the value of assets recovered to illegal drug revenue estimates, both of which are unreliable due to weak data and questionable methodologies. Another finding was that a significant amount of revenue from drug supply is not available to recovered. The question of whether there are circumstances where asset recovery might be effective could not be answered based on the available evidence. The study concludes that has been a dearth of robust and comprehensive evidence on how asset recovery might be effective in limiting drug supply.

Course: Criminal Justice - MSc - C2681F

Date Deposited: 2024-11-21

URI/permalink: https://library.port.ac.uk/dissert/dis14574.html