Drunk tanks: police should remain responsible for public safety

http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2013/sep/18/drunk-tanks-police-responsible-public-safety

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Adrian Lee, the Northamptonshire chief constable and national policing lead on alcohol harm, has suggested that the police should no longer be responsible for taking drunks off the streets and providing them with a cell in which to sleep the alcohol off. Lee suggests instead that "drunk tanks" could be run by commercial companies, who would shelter the hopelessly inebriated overnight, and present them with a bill. It's unfortunate that "drunk tanks" can be snappily shortened to DTs.

Good luck to any budding entrepreneurs attracted to this idea. I don't fancy their overheads. Premises and staff would cost a fortune, and would be empty or idle for a lot of the time. Chasing invoices would be a nightmare. If there was money to be made out of providing overnight tenancies for those too pissed to make it home, they'd already be part of the landscape.

On numerous occasions I have helped drunk people to get home. It isn't easy. Usually one has to take them back to one's own home. Twice in recent years, I've given a taxi driver £50 to take me home with women who were too off their faces to be abandoned on the street. Both times, I had to promise the driver that I'd hold their heads outside the cab windows all the way. The women were grateful, but I've never seen either of them again. It's an awkward situation all round.

In truth, these problems are mainly handled by members of the population, who tend to understand that sometimes you help people out, because otherwise they'd be a danger to themselves. It doesn't seem unreasonable that if all else has failed, then this duty falls to the police.

It would seem to me that if providing accommodation for drunk people really is a strain on the police, then they need to make deals with local taxi firms. Deals that include some kind of vomit-management system (plastic sheeting springs to mind), and, yes, charging people through the nose if they're too incapacitated to get themselves home.

The fact is that however much alcohol abuse is painted as a failure of personal choice, it's mainly a consequence of aggressive selling in a highly profitable economic sector. It may not seem fair that the casualties of booze-selling businesses are cared for out of the public purse. But that's only if you refuse to understand that it's part of the state's job to provide an environment in which private sector activity can thrive. Sadly, a lot of people put in charge of solving societal problems don't seem to understand that at all. Adrian Lee seems to be one of them.

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