Alcohol and crime: the problems with Booze Asbos by Jon Collins
When appointed Home Secretary earlier this year, Alan Johnson claimed that the Government had been ‘coasting’ on antisocial behaviour and promised ‘a new drive’ to tackle the issue.This new drive included the introduction of Drinking Banning Orders, or ‘Booze-Asbos’, which were launched over the summer with the aim, Johnson said, of giving the courts ‘powers to take action against people whose problem drunken behaviour makes other people’s lives a misery’. The Home Office suggested that the orders could be used to ban individuals from drinking in public places and restrict them from entering certain areas. However, the legislation itself is far more wide-ranging. It states that the orders give magistrates the power to ‘impose any prohibition on the subject which is necessary for the purpose of protecting other persons from criminal or disorderly conduct by the subject while he is under the influence of alcohol’. A list of restrictions follows, but they only preclude the order from banning an individual from their home, job, educational establishment or anywhere that they are required to attend by the court.
‘Any prohibition’ certainly gives magistrates a huge amount of scope. They could ban an individual, for example, from an entire country or from seeing their partner. It is not clear if this is what was intended or whether this is yet another example of poorly-drafted legislation which fails to specify closely enough what it intends to achieve. The Home Office guidance is similarly confused. It states that ‘prohibitions should be proportionate’, but then goes on to suggest that an order could include exclusion from all licensed premises in England and Wales, despite recognising on the same page that this would prevent the individual from entering most supermarkets and food shops. In practical terms this is a draconian punishment and might well not stand up to a legal challenge.
Drinking Banning Orders are the most recent in a long list of Government initiatives intended to tackle alcohol-related crime, many of which have had questionable success. For example, Alcohol Disorder Zones were introduced with the intention of compelling pubs and clubs to make a financial contribution towards tackling alcohol related disorder in a particular area. However, it has subsequently emerged that no Alcohol Disorder Zones have been created, with suggestions that they would have been unworkable in practice. Antisocial behaviour orders, with their well-publicised limitations, were also intended in part to address drunken disorder.
New measures also continue to be introduced. The latest to roll off the Home Office conveyor belt is contained in the current Policing and Crime Bill, which, if passed, will create the offence of ‘persistently possessing alcohol in a public place’. Under this proposal, any person under the age of 18 would be guilty of an offence if they are in possession of alcohol in a public place on three or more occasions within a year. Whatever the merits of this measure, it is impossible to see how the police will administer it in practice. Will a list be kept of young people who have been caught once or twice, and then every time a young person is seen drinking in a public place the police will have to take their name and then compare it the existing list to see if this puts them over the 3-strikes limit? How would such a list be managed? Would it be on a national scale, as no specific area is defined? If so, how would police forces liaise? The practical implications are unworkable.
Clearly, drinking is often related to disorderly and antisocial behaviour and this issue should not be ignored. However, these ill thought-out and gimmicky measures will do little to solve the problem, while the Conservatives’ plan to increase the cost of alcopops and super-strength lagers is also likely to have little impact. With crime and antisocial behaviour likely to be prominent on the political agenda in the run-up to the forthcoming general election, an approach that tackles the underlying culture that promotes binge-drinking, rather than slapping a band-aid on the symptoms, is long overdue.
Jon Collins is the Campaign Director of the Criminal Justice Alliance.
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