BARNSLEY’S ‘Combative Drug Partnerships’ have been working together and made strides in taking dangerous substances off the town’s streets - and they even text dealers warning them of what they are doing.
DCI Mark Oughton is South Yorkshire Police’s lead for drugs and it’s his team’s job to assess the substance circulation.
A new drugs partnership - which often meets in Barnsley - has made a positive impact in the town according to bosses.
It’s a rapidly changing picture but the creation of key collaborations and the introduction of new techniques has allowed the force to gain a clearer picture of the lethal narcotics currently being bought and sold across the borough.
DCI Oughton said: “It’s our job to keep an eye on emerging drug threats and assess what dangerous substances are currently in the drug markets in South Yorkshire.
“Reducing the risk of harm is one of our main priorities and we’ve made significant changes to how we operate over the past few years which has helped us work towards this goal.
“We hold a bi-monthly threat reduction group across all four districts in South Yorkshire where we work with key health partners and local agencies to evaluate any emerging threats we need to be aware of, both regionally and nationally.
“The local authorities of Sheffield, Barnsley, Rotherham and Doncaster now have their own Combative Drug Partnerships (CDPs) which come together every quarter and feed intelligence into us which then shapes our policing.
“We have a Drugs and Alcohol Related Death Panel (DARD) set up to ensure we are not missing any worrying trends of patterns and we have analysts looking at drug lines across the county to assess their risk in relation to other serious crimes such as child exploitation and firearms.”
A new drugs and alcohol reduction officer has also been employed to crackdown on the crime in Barnsley - and it’s also been successful.
The role has been pivotal in helping to spot trends from drug deaths and feed this information to relevant partners and agencies across all four districts of South Yorkshire.
Operation Recover is also another key piece of work that the force has been trialling to great effect.
This allows the force to send texts to people suspected of being drug users and suppliers at a lower level to make them aware of the harm and risk they are getting themselves into and to make them aware that we know of their illegal activities.
“It sends out a clear zero-tolerance message and gives them a chance to stop engaging in criminal activities while also sending out a public health message with signposting to drug intervention teams who can give them help they so often need,” DCI Oughton added.
“It’s a really good tool and allows us to target those who are further down the drug lines and committing lower-level crimes.”
