Another Asbo opportunity for young people
by Mike McNabb
Drinking persistently in public has the feel of a challenge rather than a crime.
But a crime it will be for under-18s, assuming Labour plans to crack down on underage boozing are implemented.
The latest big idea from the Department for Criminalisation aka the Home Office should provide the police, probation officers and social workers with more paperwork duties lest that pile reduces to a manageable height.
Repeat "offenders" will be awarded - or rewarded - with an Asbo, a mechanism derided in some quarters as a badge of honour for some young people. After the Asbo comes the criminal record and an extra entry in the UK's already bloated crime figures.
Moreover, it is possible for the parents of these children to be accountable to a court of law for an offence they themselves have not committed.
If the problem is as grave as we are led to believe - and the Liberal Democrats can quote some depressing statistics indeed - it is surely because the message is failing to transmit loud and clear to young people and their parents.
The impact of alcohol misuse on health is only part of it. There is a safety message too as young people staggering around inebriated are at greater risk of injury and assault.
So it is proposed that parents will be given guidelines on how much alcohol their children can safely consume. And herein lies a flaw: the one glaring difference between young people who drink too much and adults who drink too much is that the latter tend to do it in the home and the former away from home. Perhaps these guidelines should be consigned to the bottle bank before the government is accused of actively promoting alcohol consumption by setting advised limits.
Disappointingly, nowhere in the government pronouncements is there an attempt to answer the question: "Why do children drink?"
With such a knowledge gap, the government is having to focus on effect rather than cause. In the meantime perhaps booze should be placed out of the financial reach of many young people: an extra tax levy on high street sales of alcohol would be a start.