Crime Reduction - Helping to Reduce Crime in Your Area

This exploratory study explores the issues around policing busy city centres at night-time, and particularly the problems caused by large numbers of people over-indulging themselves.

Title: Drunks and Disorder - Processing intoxicated arrestees in two city-centre custody suites
Authors: Ann Deehan, Emma Marshall, Esther Saville
Series: Home Office Police Research Series Paper 150
Number of pages: 76
Date published: January 2002
Availability: Download full report PDF 191Kb

It presents the findings from a research study exploring the problems encountered in policing city-centre entertainment districts and in dealing with intoxicated arrestees in police custody. The report discusses how the police, licensees and partner agencies can work together through an integrated multi-agency approach to reduce alcohol-related disorder and violence in entertainment areas. It also identifies a number of approaches that could help alleviate the problems presented by drunken detainees in police custody.

Although the main content of the report looks at policing drunks, it makes several general observations about the effect of alcohol on crime levels in town centres.

Key recommendations

City-centre management

• strengthening links, with the support of local partnerships, between the various agencies and stakeholders to foster relations and share intelligence and ultimately increase the success of local initiatives

• encouraging the staggering of closing times of entertainment venues, ensuring sufficient fast-food outlets are open and providing adequate transport facilities out of the city-centre to reduce the potential for ‘flash-points’ outside venues and around fast-food outlets and taxi-ranks

Deterrence and detection

• targeting resources and deployment of officers to enable high visibility policing at identified ‘hotspots’ at busy times, and the use of CCTV to assist the swift and appropriate deployment of officers

• carefully targeting visits to licensed premises by local licensing units at busy times to ensure that laws are not being flouted, and encourage good serving and security practices

• substitution of standard quality glass and bottles with toughened glass or plastic ‘glasses’ by licensees, the ‘designing out’ of overcrowding in venue layout and implementation of well-advertised good serving and security practices to reduce the potential for incidents to arise or escalate

• installation of well-managed CCTV by licensees, ensuring bar and door staff are well-trained, employing good record-keeping practices, and signing up to Pub Watch and Club Watch schemes to support the ‘policing’ of the city-centre

The report also has a 3-tier tool for a multi-agency strategy to police city-centres at night. It includes situational, enforcement and intervention aspects for the Local Authority, the Police, Licensees and Treatment services.

Getting a copy

Click here for the Police Research Paper 150 'Drunks and Disorder: Processing intoxicated arrestees in two city-centre custody suites' PDF 191Kb