NCJ Number
70937
Date Published
Unknown
Length
46 pages
Annotation
This project report reviews the accomplishments of the St. Louis Detoxification and Diagnostic Evaluation Center in 1968 and presents recommendations for improvements.
Abstract
The St. Louis Metropolitan Police Department established the center for public intoxication offenders in 1966, with funds from a LEAA grant. The center's goals were to determine the rehabilitative effect that a short-time treatment approach might have on the life style of the chronic public intoxicant and to measure the savings in time to the criminal justice system that the center would provide. In 1968, the center was moved into permanent quarters at the St. Louis State Hospital after proving to be successful. The average police time required to process a public drunkenness offender was reduced from 94.8 to 45.4 minutes. The courts experienced a reduction of 65.8 percent in the number of public drunkenness cases reaching final dispositions from 1966 to 1968. Workhouse commitments for such cases declined by 79.9 percent over this period, and 67.9 percent fewer drunkenness offenders were arrested. Recommendations include changing the fixed 7-day period of hospitalization to a variable period of a few hours to 14 days, using a single center to handle cases from the entire city, opening admission to walk-in patients and referrals from other sources, strengthening aftercare facilities and services, and providing special police training in the handling of public drunkenness offenders. A summary of the final report for 1967 is included. Appendixes contain information on police procedures for detoxification center admission, on times of arrest for drunkeness offenders, on numbers of offenders admitted to the center, on cases prosecuted, on case dispositions, and on jail terms for offenders.