1. Nicola Brown Dorothy Newbury-Birch Eileen Kaner
Alcohol Screening & Brief Interventions in a Policing Context. A Feasibility Study
As we have already heard throughout this conference there is a wealth of evidence exploring SBI in health settings, whereas in the CJS the evidence is only in the very early stages.
Nicola Brown
Dorothy Newbury-Birch
Eileen Kaner

2. 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
Harmful use of alcohol is therefore likely to be overrepresented among criminal offenders

3. 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)

4. 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

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

6. 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

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

10. Findings 229 participants involved
From a possible 634 target arrests (36%)
80% Male
92% White British
52% Unemployed
63% data collected on weekends
Ethnicity has some reporting inconsistencies
Maybe more depending on mother, housewife or ‘none’ classification

12. 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%

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

14. 50% 14% 36%

15. To note that question doesn’t account for gender differences. i. e
To note that question doesn’t account for gender differences. i.e. 8 units or more for men. Therefore over sensitive?

16. Yes, but not in the last 6 months – 15 (9%)
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%)

17. Further analysis
Possibilities to analyse each AUDIT questions and cross-match for certain demographic characteristics
Qualitative interviews with the
Detention Officers involved
Do those who are unemployed have a higher level of possible dependency or is a particular age range more likely to have caused an injury to themselves or someone else?
Explore their views on the training, overall process and delivery. Tease out emerging themes relating to acceptability and the feasibility of rolling this out routinely.

18. Limitations One North East Police Station 3 month data collection
Representative sample
Mostly white males.
Migrating population – holiday makers, overseas workers on the Tyne Tunnel etc
This was most probably a training issue as the DOs wrote doesn’t drink on the form and didn’t complete the AUDIT, therefore some of the missing participants may have screened negative.

19. 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
Other arrests in 3 months - This includes offences of dishonesty/fraud, damage/arson, immigration, some motoring and other miscellaneous offences.
If Dos worked to the same ratio that would be equivelant to 800 people screened.

20. 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
Going back to the original aims this study shows that ….

21. Thank you
Any questions?