18:19
Tieng Anh Vui
Privately run "drunk cells" should be opened to tackle alcohol-fuelled disorder, police chiefs have said.
They said drunk people should be put in cells overnight to sober up and charged for their care the next morning.
The Association of Chief Police Officers, which is launching a campaign on alcohol harm to coincide with university freshers' season, said the problem was increasing.
The Police Federation said the plan was "neither a viable nor long-term" fix.
Northamptonshire Chief Constable Adrian Lee, who leads on the issue of problem drinking for Acpo in England, Wales and Northern Ireland, said officers should no longer have to care for the increasing number of revellers who "get so drunk that they cannot look after themselves".
"So 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?" he said.
"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."
He said police are not "experts on health", so it can be hard to decide whether people should be in a police station or a hospital - and drunk people should not be "clogging up" A&E departments.
'Sticking plaster'
Mr Lee is not the first to suggest so-called drunk tanks - Humberside Police and Crime Commissioner Matthew Grove recently raised the idea.
Steve White, vice-chairman of the Police Federation of England and Wales, which represents officers, said he would favour "any measure that frees up police officer time and gets them back on to the streets".
But he said: "This proposal throws up far more questions than answers, particularly with regards to accountability.
"Privately operated drunk tanks are neither a viable nor long-term solution to binge drinking and merely represent a sticking plaster for the problem."
He said binge drinking needed addressing but the government should come up with a "multi-agency approach rather than looking to the police for the answer".
"It's a great shame that due to the cuts to the service we find ourselves in a situation where we are even considering the use of private contractors to carry out traditional police functions," he added.
The In Focus: Alcohol Harm campaign launched by Mr Lee, which will include drink-drive operations, visits to disorder "hotspots" and talks to new university students, is intended to highlight the difficulties police face in dealing with drunk people.
Nearly 50% of all violent crime is alcohol related, Acpo said, while offenders are thought to be under the influence of alcohol in nearly half of all incidents of domestic abuse, and alcohol plays a part in 25% to 33% of known child abuse cases.
Crime prevention minister Jeremy Browne said: "I welcome this campaign to raise awareness of the impact of alcohol-fuelled crime, which costs around £11bn a year in England and Wales.
"Front-line police officers are all too aware of the drunken behaviour and alcohol-fuelled disorder that can effectively turn towns and cities into no-go areas for law-abiding people, particularly on Friday and Saturday nights."
Đăng ký: Tieng Anh Vui
Posted in: 
0 comments:
Post a Comment