It
has been variously estimated that alcohol and/or drugs are the basis
of around 70% criminal activity. It would not be unreasonable to
assume that half that total of offending occurs when excess alcohol
has been consumed. Some offences eg drunk and disorderly and drink
driving are specifically related to the demon drink. Various
measures have been and are being tried to reduce this scourge which
has plagued society for millennia eg drinking banning orders or ASBOs
which just shift the geography of offending. Last week saw the
inauguration of a localised effort to deter some of those offenders
where alcohol was considered to be a prime component of their
criminal activity. It is being trialled in four South London
magistrates` courts; Croydon, Lambeth Southwark and
Sutton. This seems to be a very pro active and interesting
initiative from the Justice Ministry which is not a description I
have used very often. My one concern is that presumably the wearers
of the alcohol tags and the tags themselves will require
interrogation by the Probation Service or what remains of it in South
London after what appears to be a disasterous re-organisation. Perhaps a member associated with that service might be able
to offer further information.
I can see a couple of ways to get around this one. Firstly, as the device is a vapour-phase detector, wrapping it in cling-film ought to mostly defeat it, as would spraying something into the detector.
ReplyDeleteFailing that, triggering multiple false positives would quickly convince the monitoring team that a device was faulty. This may well happen anyway; ketones from particularly malodorous socks might well be enough to trigger the device, as might shower gel and the like.