§ Mr. Kilroy-Silkasked the Secretary of State for the Home Department when he intends to introduce the statutory order implementing Section 91 of the Criminal Justice Act 1967.
§ Mr. Alexander W. LyonThe section cannot be brought into force until sufficient suitable accommodation is available for the care and treatment of persons convicted of being drunk and disorderly. We are considering the offences of drunkenness within the criminal law.
§ Mr. Kilroy-Silkasked the Secretary of State for the Home Department if, as 576W part of their training, police officers receive advice on the problem of and treatment facilities for habitual drunken offenders as recommended in the Report on Habitual Drunken Offenders.
§ Dr. SummerskillBasic training for police constables already includes general guidance on the procedures for dealing with drunken offenders. The question whether any further guidance would be appropriate will be considered if and when any special facilities such as the report recommended are introduced.
§ Mr. Kilroy-Silkasked the Secretary of State for the Home Department (1) if the recommendation of the Report on Habitual Drunken Offenders for teams to be formed in prisons to identify and deal with drink problems has been implemented, and if not, why not;
(2) if the experiment to test whether there would be advantage in grouping drunkenness offenders together in prisons in a treatment unit geared specifically to their needs has been conducted, and if not, why not;
(3) if the model treatment unit has been set up in a closed prison to cater for medium and long-sentence prisoners with drink problems, as recommended as a matter of urgency by the Report on Habitual Drunken Offenders in 1971;
(4) if an Alcoholics Anonymous group has been formed in every prison; and what attempt has been made to establish them.
§ Dr. SummerskillThe working party's recommendations have to be seen in the light of the general pressure of the last few years on the prison system and the competing demands for treatment of other needs among prisoners. Resources are not available to permit the formation of teams of the kind suggested by the report; but training programmes help non-specialist staff to identify alcoholism and its problems and specialist treatment is widely available in the prison system. An experimental therapeutic unit, which groups together prisoners with addiction problems, has been established at Wormwood Scrubs prison. Alcoholics Anonymous is co-operating with the Prison Department in forming new groups in prisons. Fifty-six out of 71 prisons now have such groups.