Borrowing crime control policy from the USA: 'compulsory sobriety' and the rise of 'alcohol tags'

Alcohol-related crime is a policy problem that is currently attracting significant political and academic attention in the UK, and it is not difficult to understand why. Taking into account the worth of property damaged or stolen, the loss of productive output, and victim support and emotional impact, this type of crime has been estimated by the Cabinet Office to cost between £8 billion and £13 billion per year. Just over half of all violent incidents involve an offender being under the influence of alcohol, and in 2015 drink-driving accidents produced 8,000 casualties. Across the UK, the ratio of alcohol-related crime is eight per 1,000 people. In London specifically however, this number is higher at 12.5 per 1,000 people, with approximately 80 percent of weekend arrests by the Metropolitan Police being linked to alcohol consumption. In judging existing supply and demand-side alcohol policies to be failing, the Mayor's Office for Policing and Crime (MOPAC) scoured the world for alternative solutions. The solution found was the South Dakota 24/7 Sobriety Project. Launched in 2005 under the direction of Attorney General Larry Long, this project involves those who have committed alcohol-fueled offences being sentenced to period of alcohol abstinence and regular testing to ensure compliance, either via a breathalyser regime or by being fitted with a continuous transdermal alcohol monitoring anklet ('alcohol tag'). Those who skip or fail their tests are subject to immediate incarceration for 24-48 hours prior to receiving a more severe sentence.

Subsequent to MOPAC's initial 'Compulsory Sobriety Pilot', the idea of 24/7 Sobriety has diffused within the UK, with the Police and Crime Commissioners for Lincolnshire, Humberside, and North Yorkshire launching a 'compulsory sobriety' pilot in June 2017. The notion of mandating domestic violence perpetrators to a period of electronically monitored alcohol abstinence has also been proposed within the May Government's Domestic Abuse Bill. 24/7 Sobriety as a criminal justice intervention, and alcohol tagging as a technological innovation, have thus infiltrated the policy-making process and captured the imagination of political elites. Notably however, policy, debate, and evidence are not aligned in the UK at present, with evidence and discussion of the benefits and potential hazards of enforced alcohol abstinence lagging behind political ambitions. The aim of my fellowship is to address this bifurcation via undertaking a series of activities, including establishing a multi-level, multi-agency 'compulsory sobriety network', undertaking a qualitative research project that captures existing knowledge concerning the application of 24/7 Sobriety to domestic violence perpetrators, and publishing a number of academic papers and practitioner-focused blog posts.