DARREN looks smart in his collar and tie. It's hard to believe that not so long ago he was grafting for his next fix.

Once a prolific shoplifter with a £250 daily heroin habit, he is now attempting to go straight and is doing a bit of voluntary office work.

The 28-year-old is subject to a 12-month Drug Treatment and Testing Order (DTTO) - increasingly seen as an alternative to prison and a viable way of breaking the drugs and crime cycle.

DTTOs, which can last between six months and three years, were introduced in October 2000 as a community-based penalty for people with drug addictions.

Previously, community service or other such penalties contained no drug treatment, unless specifically requested by the offender or his probation officer - and then there was often a long wait for treatment.

On average they work within a programme for up to 20 hours a week, combining contact with a probation officer, drugs treatment and counselling.

They also undergo mandatory drugs tests twice every week in the form of a mouth swab.

Darren is a shining example of how the treatment orders can work.

He is progressing hugely, is on the verge of declaring himself clean, is working, and has recently completed psychology and computer courses with the help of drugs workers.

It is all a far cry from the day more than six years ago when he began taking heroin after a leg injury he suffered, while working as a postman, left him on the sick.

He says: "It has been an on-going battle for the past six or seven years.

"My brother, who had a long drugs background, introduced some friends to me who were taking heroin.

"I found that it was so strong it took the pain away and made me totally relaxed. I did not feel a thing.

"It took my mind away from the fact that I was on the sick and any other problems I had."

Unlike the traditional view of heroin addiction where addicts inject the drug, he smoked heroin in a joint like a cannabis user would.

Soon, he found he had a £250-a-day habit. He lost his job and turned to crime, becoming, in his own words, a prolific shoplifter.

Already given an 18-month prison sentence in his early 20s for a burglary, he was shown the shoplifting ropes by a friend.

"Every day I would be out stealing anything from toilet rolls to jars of coffee to electrical goods, and would find out through word of month who wanted what so I could sell stuff on."

As the addiction grew, he began drug-running for associates of his brother, who was in Durham prison.

"Somebody wanted him to get stuff on the outside and he got me to take drugs in for him.

"I went in a few times as a visitor smuggling drugs in but never got searched.

"Then one time I took some heroin in, about £50 worth, wrapped in a parcel in my pocket, and was randomly searched - which was when they found the drugs."

For this he received 12 months for possession with intent to supply. A number of other spells inside followed as a result of scores of shoplifting offences.

Darren - not his real name - says that although he did not use as much inside, heroin was still readily available at both Durham and Holme House prison, where he had a spell.

"If you wanted it, they could get it," he says.

"People would trade anything for smack - valuables, jewellery, watches to tobacco and phone cards.

"And they would hide it anywhere. It would be cheeked (held between the buttocks), swallowed and kept somewhere on the body."

It has been a year since he was last in prison, where he claims his addiction was not properly treated.

"The last time I was in, there was no help for withdrawing from heroin. I had a methadone crash course that didn't really work.

"Because your addiction is not being properly treated, you get into a cycle of coming out of prison, getting back with your old mates and falling into taking drugs again.

"When you're inside and there's a lack of help, people just take drugs."

Darren is one of 65 people in County Durham and Darlington on DTTOs, although it is hoped that number will eventually double.

Offenders appear every month before a "review court" consisting of probation staff and magistrates, where their progress is checked and alterations made to their order if necessary.

Wendy Balmain, a drug intervention team manager based in Newton Aycliffe, says that drug treatment in the community is often preferable to prison because the key difference is that people get to keep family ties and retain their domestic circumstances.

But they have to be willing to "want to make a change in their lives" for it to work.

"Anecdotally, we know that people who are subject to the orders their level of offending drops significantly," she says.

"We get them to look at their behaviour and make lifestyle changes so they can reduce their drug use and offending.

"We are a good performing area here, but there is still a lot to learn."

Research results for DTTO pilots in Croydon, Liverpool and London have shown that 63 per cent of offenders commit no offences at the end of their order.

This is compared with about 50 per cent of prisoners who will continue to reoffend after completing their sentence.

Enver Solomon, policy officer at the Prison Reform Trust, says that pressure on prisons caused by overcrowding often means that staff cannot "constructively engage" with inmates who have an addiction.

He said: "Giving people a community sentence focused on tackling their habit with an element of punishment involved means they have a better chance of not reoffending.

"It is more appropriate than sending them into prison, where there is often a long queue for treatment and where illegal drugs are available anyway."