Police custody staff can identify heavy drinkers among people who have been arrested and deliver brief alcohol advice, but they struggle to provide follow-up counselling sessions on a different day. This matters because alcohol is a factor in half of all violent crimes, and around a quarter of police time is spent on alcohol-related incidents. Brief alcohol advice and counselling reduce heavy drinking in health settings, but researchers do not know whether these approaches work in police custody suites, where many heavy drinkers first come into contact with services. If this approach proves effective in a full trial, it could give police a practical tool to reduce reoffending and cut the burden on the criminal justice system. The researchers found that using police arrest records and NHS data—such as A&E attendance—is a more reliable way to measure long-term effects than trying to contact arrestees directly. This insight could shape how future studies in custody settings are designed, making them cheaper and more robust.
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There is a link between alcohol use and offending behaviour. Alcohol has been found to be a factor in half of all violent crimes and around a quarter of police time is spent on alcohol-related incidents. The use of brief alcohol advice or brief counselling can help people reduce heavy drinking and alcohol-related problems. However, most studies have been carried out in health settings. The purpose of this study is to find out whether it is possible to use similar alcohol advice or counselling approaches in police custody suites with people who have been arrested. We did a small pilot study to see if staff based in police Custody Suites can identify arrested people who are also heavy drinkers and deliver brief advice or brief counselling to them. To see if advice or counselling might help reduce heavy drinking, we tried to contact the drinkers after one year to measure any effects. We also asked if the study was acceptable to staff and arrestees. All arrestees completed a short questionnaire about their drinking and those who were heavy drinkers were placed in one of three groups: 1. Some received no advice or counselling about alcohol. 2. Some were given 10 minutes of brief advice about their drinking from detention staff. 3. Some received this advice about their drinking from detention staff and were also offered 20 minutes more counselling from a trained counsellor either straight away or on another day. We aimed to recruit 60 arrestees in each group (180 in total), provide advice or counselling to all relevant people and re-contact at least half of them a year later. We recruited 79 (group 1); 65 arrestees (group 2) and 61 (group 3). Everyone received the brief advice but only 18% received the brief counselling. We were able to re-contact just 26% one year later, mainly by telephone. However, most (94%) arrestees gave us permission to ask the police for information about their arrests in the year before and after the study. This let us find out who was arrested in the year before and after they took part in the study – and how many times arrests occurred. We concluded that that we could recruit the right numbers for a future study and the Custody Suite Staff can provide advice - but not the extra counselling – especially if this was on a different day. The staff and arrestees told us that they found being part of the study acceptable. As we could not re-contact most of the arrestees one year later, we decided it would be best to use police information (on arrests) and also NHS information (such as visiting A&E units) to see if the advice was helpful to arrestees rather than trying asking arrestees themselves.
NIHR School for Public Health Research - Public Health
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