Drunk Tanks for Binge Drinkers in Britain: Can it succeed where other measures have failed?

A large proportion of people in Britain especially those between the ages of 19 and 27 get drunk every Friday night. Emergency services including the Ambulance and police services provide round the clock care to these drunks to ensure that they are okay. In the past, policy makers have tried to tackle this binge problem by introducing different measures including the restriction of the age at which a person can purchase alcohol, asking Pubs not to sell drinks to any customer they suspect to be drunk, and increasing the taxation on alcohol. So far none of these measures has helped in reducing the binge culture. Now the police have come up with a new solution to the persistent problem of drinking called the “Drunk Tanks”.

The Drunk tanks will involve private cells designed to accommodate drunk people until they become sober. They will be run by private companies who will be required to follow specific guidelines relating to the caring of vulnerable people. The cost of these services shall be met by the drunks who will be fined £400.

A major benefit of this programme is that the resources for the emergency services will be freed up for people who really need them. The ambulance services that have been diverting some of their resources which are meant for the sick to look after the drunks can use those resources to look solely after the sick. The police also will have more resources to deal with policing activities which involve detecting, investigating and preventing crimes if they are not looking after the drunks. There is no doubt that all of these will help to bring better care treatment for the sick and improve community safety.

Asking the drunks to pay for the cost of their service may also serve as deterrence for potential drunks. The rationale for the £400 drink fine is that people do not get drunk by mistake. Instead, they tend to choose to drink and get drunk. Therefore they will think twice before getting drunk if they are going to pay a heavy price for it. It remains to be seen however whether this cost-benefit analysis can work for habitual drunks considering that it does not work for prolific criminals who live a life of crime.

Aside from the fact that people who get drunk may not consider the implications of their actions beforehand, a major issue that is raised by the drunk tanks programme is how to get the drunks to pay the fine. Architects of the programme may argue that drunks who refuse to pay for their fine can be taken to court for it to get the penalty enforced. What about if the drunks defy the court judgment and continue to engage in binge drinking and incur more fines? Should the drunks be sent to prison? Who will fund the cost of keeping them in prison?

A further question raised by the drunk tanks programme is whether similar schemes can be applied to other circumstances in which individuals who receive treatment from the state are perceived to have been warned beforehand about the dangers associated with the cause of their problems? Should a smoker who has been warned repeatedly through measures such as leaflets and other stop smoking campaigns about the dangers of smoking, for example, be asked to pay for the cost of his or her care when he or she contracts lung cancer? Or should the state ask people who defy weather warnings for people not to go to the beech to surf because of imminent adverse weather condition to pay for the cost of any rescue services that they may receive in times of trouble? These people should be asked to pay for the cost of their services if people are fined for getting drunk.

It is evident from these that the drunk tanks programme may create more problems than it is meant to solve. Policy makers should therefore consider other possible solutions to tackle the drink problems including asking drunk people who receive care from the emergency services to do community work instead of asking them to pay a fine.