The idea of privately run “drunk tanks” to
tackle alcohol-fuelled disorder has been backed by police chiefs.
They said drunk troublemakers should be put in cells to sober up and
made to pay 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 problem
drinking was increasing.
This doesn’t sound that
bad an idea at first, but like so many ideas the more you think about them the more
stumbling blocks loom on the horizon, starting with the fact that if these
drunk tanks were to become operational they would be in the hands of private
companies, the same private companies who lied about prisoners tags and cocked
up the Olympic security, not to name names (cough) G4S.
Also those in charge of
running a drunk tank would need medical training to judge whether someone is so
drunk they require a trip to A&E, and last but by no means least there’s
the thorny issue of going to someone who’s hung-over and has zero recollection
of the night before and saying to them right you owe us x amount of pounds, I
can’t see that going down too well.
There is a much simpler
ways to tackle alcohol related crime, either bring back and implement the
minimum price for a unit of alcohol or, as that idea was shelved and is
unlikely to make a comeback, ban special promotions that pubs and clubs have
where they sell drinks for as little as £1, that would be a better place to
start.
Or if you really want to
go to the extreme there is the option of plastering images of livers of heavy
drinkers on bottles of alcohol, or running adds where someone is at an AA
meeting and stands up and describes in excruciating detail how they lost
everything because of excessive drinking, basically treat alcohol like tobacco.
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