18.09.13
Drunk people should pay to be kept locked up overnight – not police
The country’s leading police chief responsible for alcohol harm has called for the establishment ‘drunk tanks’ – where people could be kept overnight, at their own expense, instead of in a police cell.
ACPO suggested such facilities, which it calls ‘welfare centres’, would be better for the individual and for the public purse. But the Police Federation, representing rank-and-file officers, said it was unviable and just a sticking plaster, when the real issue was adequate funding for police.
Northamptonshire Chief Constable Adrian Lee, who leads on alcohol harm for ACPO in England, Wales and Northern Ireland, told the BBC that people who were drunk, disorderly and incapable should not be kept in police cells, saying: “Why don't we take them to a drunk cell owned by a commercial company and get the commercial company to look after them during the night until they are sober?
“When that is over, we will issue them with a fixed penalty and the company will be able to charge them for their care, which would be at quite significant cost and that might be a significant deterrent.”
The policy is already in place in parts of the USA. Chuck Rose from the Santa Barbara Sobering Center in California told the BBC: “When they are first brought in we let them sleep it off because we don't talk to people who are drunk or high on drugs - you cannot get through to them.
“If [the police] bring somebody and check them into our establishment, they are with us about five minutes and we take it from there. If they have to take someone to jail, it’s an hour-and-a-half of paperwork. They [the police] are back on the street, where they can do the most good.”
The Association of Chief Police Officers raised the issue as part of its new campaign on alcohol harm to coincide with university freshers’ weeks.
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