Alcohol Screening & Brief Interventions in a Policing Context. A Feasibility Study Nicola Brown Dorothy Newbury-Birch Eileen Kaner

Background 23% of the adult population, or 7.1 million people, in England drink alcohol in a hazardous or harmful way 60-65% prevalence in CJS settings Total cost of alcohol-related crime in England & Wales is £7.3 billion

Alcohol and Crime 40% of Binge Drinkers admitted committing a crime in past 12 months ( Budd 2003) Binge drinkers 5 times more likely to be involved in a fight in previous 12 months ( Richardson and Budd 2003) Victim, offender or both had been drinking in previous 4 hours in 90% of assaults (Finney 2004) Alcohol is consumed before 73% of domestic violence cases (Gilchrist 2003) Up to 25% of current Police work is associated with alcohol related incidents (Palk 2007)

Aim To explore the feasibility of providing alcohol SBI in the Police setting To survey the number of detainees that can be screened for alcohol use within a given time frame in a Police station To determine the number & proportion of hazardous/ harmful drinkers that are willing to engage in BA To establish the training needs of Detention Officers for conducting alcohol SBI

Design £10K funding  £5K South Tyneside DAAT  £5K South Tyneside PCT 3 months data collection  May to July 2009

Process South Shields Police Station Carried out by 10 detention officers During finger printing just prior to release Inclusion criteria  Arrested for a public order offence or any assault offence (excluding attempted murder or murder)  Aged 18 or over  Alert and orientated  Able to speak, read and write English sufficiently well to comprehend the intervention

Data Collection Participants characteristics  Age, gender, occupation, ethnicity Arrest Details  Reason for arrest, time, day Audit Score - 10 questions BA delivery & explanation if not

Findings 229 participants involved From a possible 634 target arrests (36%) 80% Male 92% White British 52% Unemployed 63% data collected on weekends

Arrest Classifications Expanded as some DO’s included people outside of the remit Assault – 50% Public Order – 40% Other – Drug possession, sexual offences, child neglect, arson etc – 10%

For the 172 participants who completed a questionnaire 132 (75%) had an AUD

50% 14%36%

AUDIT Question 9. Have you or somebody else been injured as a result of your drinking? No – 86 (49%) Yes, but not in the last 6 months – 15 (9%) Yes during the last 6 months – 71 (40%) Missing – 4 (2%)

Further analysis Possibilities to analyse each AUDIT questions and cross-match for certain demographic characteristics Qualitative interviews with the Detention Officers involved

Limitations One North East Police Station 3 month data collection Representative sample

Future Work Total arrest for 3 months was >2000 Exploring the DO views may give an insight into;  acceptability & feasibility  possible new ways of working  future research possibilities

Conclusions 229 of 634 (36%) of all target arrests were screened for alcohol consumption 176 of 634 (28%) completed the AUDIT 126 of the 133 (95%) who screened positive were willing to engage in BA

Thank you Any questions?