Do court-imposed alcohol interventions reduce reoffending?

In this blog, ADR UK Research Fellow Dr Carly Lightowlers discusses the findings of her research which explored how alcohol-related treatment or monitoring requirements are being used and whether they are reducing reoffending.

Court-imposed alcohol orders

In cases where alcohol consumption played a role in defendants’ offending, courts in England and Wales may use alcohol treatment or abstinence requirements as part of a community sentence, depending on the nature of the drinking and offending. 

Where the consumption of alcohol is a factor in the offence committed, and the offender is not dependent on alcohol, the court may impose an abstinence requirement. These require offenders to abstain from alcohol (not to drink) for a fixed period (not exceeding 120 days) as part of a community or suspended sentence order. Compliance with abstinence requirements can be monitored using alcohol monitoring tags, which are devices placed on the skin that measure the alcohol content in sweat. These tags are backed up with the threat of further court hearings, fines, or imprisonment.

On the other hand, if an offender is dependent on alcohol, a court can impose an alcohol treatment requirement. This means the offender has to attend alcohol dependency treatment as part of their community or suspended sentence order. These can run for up to 36 months.

First study of its kind to evaluate court-imposed alcohol orders

Despite the rapid adoption of abstinence requirements, there has been no evaluation as to whether they reduce reoffending. Some previous research has demonstrated high levels of compliance with abstinence requirements in the form of sobriety. However, there is limited evidence about whether their use reduces longer term reoffending, despite this being their primary objective.

I addressed this evidence gap in my research; the first of its kind to assess compliance with both abstinence and treatment requirements. I explored who is receiving them, and the type of offences they are receiving them for, as well as their impact on reoffending. I considered whether those given such requirements complete them successfully, and whether they reoffend less than those who are not given such requirements for similar offences.

What I found

My research found that abstinence requirements reduced the likelihood of reoffending, but that treatment requirements did not. You can read about all my findings in my Data Insight.  

Offence profile

I found that alcohol abstinence monitoring requirements tended to be used for sentencing of minor (summary) offences, which can include minor traffic, criminal damage and assault offences, among others. Alcohol treatment requirements tend to be used for sentencing of minor offences, as well as theft and violence.

Completion rate

Three in four abstinence requirements (78.1%) were successfully completed. This is lower than earlier evaluation studies reporting higher compliance rates with abstinence requirements (e.g. 97.2%).

Two thirds (68.2%) of treatement requirements were successfully completed. This finding is similar to that observed in a recent study which looked at pathways between probation and addiction treatment in England.

Successful completion of either type of requirement was less likely for those serving community sentences for theft offences (compared to other types of offences). This might be indicative of behaviour used to fund entrenched alcohol use or dependence, or of other factors relating to means (income) or homelessness. These would benefit from further investigation.

Reoffending following alcohol requirements

In my analysis, I got mixed results as to the impact of abstinence and treatment requirements on reoffending. I found evidence that abstinence requirements reduced the likelihood of reoffending, but no evidence that treatment requirements did similarly.  Those who received an abstinence requirement were significantly less likely to reappear before the magistrates’ courts for a subsequent offence within the study period (Jan 2014 to Dec 2020) when compared with those who did not receive such a requirement, with a decreased risk of reoffending between 24 and 33 per cent.

Conversely those in receipt of alcohol treatment requirements were statistically more likely to offend. This may be due to factors beyond those controlled for in this analysis, for example housing status.

What this means

I hope these findings encourage reflection on the use and purposes of court-enforced alcohol treatment. Further research could explore why these treatments did not find an impact on reoffending. Research could also consider their merit on other outcomes such as harm reduction, healthier drinking patterns, or other wellbeing or lifestyle factors that may reduce  crime.

On the other hand, the analysis showed that abstinence requirements reduced reoffending. More research (as detailed in my Data Insight report) would still be beneficial to understand the conditions and for what type of drinkers these are most effective (e.g. light versus heavy drinkers).

 

This project used linked probation and magistrates’ courts datasets made available through the Ministry of Justice Data First programme. You can read details of Carly’s analytical strategy and statistical methods on the OSF Registries. These are also reported on in further detail in her related Data Explained reports.