NCJ Number
90189
Journal
Police Magazine Volume: 6 Issue: 4 Dated: (July 1983) Pages: 12-16,18
Date Published
1983
Length
6 pages
Annotation
Police and municipal governments in cities like Los Angeles, Madison, Wisc., San Diego, Seattle, and Alexandria, Va., are experimenting with new approaches to handling public drunks. Now rarely jailed, drunks are transported to detoxification centers by police or civilian teams who report varying degrees of satisfaction with the program.
Abstract
These detoxification centers are often run under contract by the Volunteers of America. While public drunkenness is no longer a crime in 37 States, public inebriates and the problems they cause remain a major preoccupation of police agencies across the country. In many metropolitan areas, public drunkenness is the common element in a whole array of disturbances. In the past 15 years, many States and localities have made some progress toward removing inebriated people from jails through decriminalization, civil diversion, and detoxification centers. However, drunks are still said to occupy 25 to 40 percent of the Nation's jail beds. Unfortunately, most jails are not equipped to handle these people's problems. Examples of alternatives to jailing drunks can be found in Seattle, where the Emergency Patrol Service replaced police on the skid row beat in 1976; in San Diego, where the Inebriate Reception Center handles most drunks; and in Madison, Wis. Photographs are provided.