Hostname: page-component-745bb68f8f-b6zl4 Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2025-02-11T03:19:03.873Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

What shall we do with the Drunkenness Offender?

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  29 January 2018

Howard I. Hershon ,
Tim Cook  and
Peter A. Foldes
Howard I. Hershon
Affiliation:
Addiction Research Unit, Institute of Psychiatry, University of London and the Maudsley Hospital; Shenley Hospital, nr. St. Albans, Herts
Tim Cook
Affiliation:
Alcoholics Recovery Project, 25 Camberwell Grove, London, S.E.5
Peter A. Foldes
Affiliation:
Alcoholics Recovery Project, 25 Camberwell Grove, London, S.E.5
Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Extract

Core share and HTML view are not available for this content. However, as you have access to this content, a full PDF is available via the ‘Save PDF’ action button.

In England, public intoxication has been a criminal offence ever since an Act of Parliament was passed in the reign of James I, somewhat over three and a half centuries ago. Edwards (1970) compiled some figures on these offences for the last two hundred years, showing that the rate of arrest was much higher in the nineteenth century than at present. For example, in 1878 there were 70 arrests per 10,000 of the population, compared with a comparable figure for 1968 of 16. Nevertheless, the latest available figures from the Home Office (1971) show that 82,961 persons were found guilty of simple or aggravated public drunkenness in 1971. In the U.S.A., with its apparently much larger alcoholism problem, there were nearly one and a half million arrests for this group of offences in 1966 (Pittman, 1969); this accounts for one third of all arrests in that country (Chafetz, 1971).

Type
Research Article
Information
The British Journal of Psychiatry , Volume 124 , Issue 581 , April 1974 , pp. 327 - 335
Copyright
Copyright © Royal College of Psychiatrists, 1974 

References

Alcohol and Health (1971). Special Report to the U.S. Congress. D.H.E.W., Publication No. (HSM) 72–9099.Google Scholar
Chafetz, M. E. (1971). In Alcohol and Health. Special Report to the U.S. Congress. D.H.E.W. Publication No. (HSM) 72-9099.Google Scholar
Comprehensive Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism Prevention, Treatment and Rehabilitation Act (1970). Public Law, 91-616 (U.S.).Google Scholar
Cook, T. (1969). ‘Existing facilities in the U.K.’, in The Drunkenness Offence (ed. Cook, T., Gath, D., and Hensman, C.). Oxford: Pergamon Press.Google Scholar
Criminal Justice Act (1967). Part VI, 91. London: H.M.S.O.Google Scholar
Criminal Justice Act (1972). Part III, 34. London: H.M.S.O.Google Scholar
Driver, R. J. (1969). ‘The United States Supreme Court and the chronic drunkenness offender.’ Quart. J. Stud. Alc., 30, 165–72.Google ScholarPubMed
Edwards, G. (1964). ‘The circulating alcoholic.’ Med. Sci. and Law, 254–8.Google Scholar
Edwards, G., Hawker, A., Williamson, V., and Hensman, C. (1966). ‘London's Skid Row.’ Lancet i, 249–52.Google Scholar
Edwards, G., Williamson, V., Hawker, A., Hensman, C., and Postoyan, S. (1968). ‘Census of a reception centre.’ Brit. J. Psychiat., 114, 1031–9.Google Scholar
Postoyan, S. (1970). ‘Place of treatment professions in society's response to chemical abuse.’ Brit. med. J., ii, 195–9.Google Scholar
Postoyan, S., Hensman, C., and Peto, J. (1971). ‘Drinking problems amongst recidivist prisoners.’ Psychol. Med., 1, 388–9.Google Scholar
Gath, D., Hensman, C., Kelly, M., and Edwards, G. (1968). ‘The drunk in court: survey of drunkenness offenders from two London courts’. Brit. med. J., iv, 808–11.Google Scholar
Gibbens, T. C. N., and Silberman, M. (1970). ‘Alcoholism among prisoners.’ Psychol. Med., 1, 73–8.Google Scholar
Hershon, H. I. (1972). ‘The disease concept of alcoholism: a re-appraisal.’ Paper read at the 30th International Congress on Alcoholism and Drug Dependence, Amsterdam.Google Scholar
Hershon, H. I. (1973). ‘Alcohol withdrawal symptoms: phenomenology and implications.’ Brit. J. Addict. 68, 295–302.Google ScholarPubMed
Home Office (1971). Habitual Drunken Offenders: Report of a Working Party. London: H.M.S.O.Google Scholar
Jellinek, E. M. (1960). The Disease Concept of Alcoholism New Haven, Connecticut: Hillhouse Press.Google Scholar
Mitchell, J. N. (1971). In Alcohol and Health. Special Report to the U.S. Congress. D.H.E.W. Publication No. (HSM) 72–9099.Google Scholar
Myerson, D. J., and Mayer, J. (1966). ‘Origins, treatment and destiny of skid-row alcoholic men.’ New Eng. J. Med., 275, 419–25.Google Scholar
Pittman, D. J. (1969). ‘Existing and proposed treatment facilities in the U.S.A.’, in The Drunkenness Offender (ed. Cook, T., Gath, D., and Hensman, C.). Oxford: Pergamon Press.Google Scholar
Pollak, B. (1969). ‘Rathcoole House—an experiment in rehabilitation’, in The Drunkenness Offender (ed. Cook, T., Gath, D., and Hensman, C.). Oxford: Pergamon Press.Google Scholar
Weisman, M. N. (1972). ‘Current status of the treatment of alcoholism.’ Maryland State med. J., 21, 73–6.Google Scholar
Submit a response

eLetters

No eLetters have been published for this article.