First Time Alcohol Abstinence and Monitoring Requirement

Whenever the court imposes a community order it has available a range of requirements that can be attached to that order.

One or more requirements must be attached to a community order. The same requirements are available for attachment to a suspended sentence order, but this is at the discretion of the court - the theory being that a suspended sentence order, which is akin to the Sword of Damocles hovering over the head of the offender, is quite a significant sentence in its own right.

In 2021 the alcohol abstinence and monitoring requirement (AAMR) was added to the list available to the court. Until last week I had never been part of a Bench that had imposed this requirement, which should only be used in very specific circumstances. The court can impose an AAMR for up to 120 days. AAMR is a punitive measure, which effectively deprives the (adult) offender of the right to drink alcohol.

Whilst subject to AAMR the offender wears an electronic tag, which monitors the level of alcohol in their body. If the tag detects excess alcohol in their body, that is reported back to the monitoring company and may lead to breach proceedings.

Breach of a community order is a serious matter. The most egregious breaches - those where the offender makes very little or no effort to comply - can result in them being sentenced to a term of custody. That is the case even when the original offence, for which the order was imposed, did not merit custody in its own right.

The court generally seeks to avoid setting an offender up for failure, so AAMR is not appropriate for any individual with alcohol dependency or prone to binge drinking. In order to be successful AAMR requires a bit of commitment and willpower on the part of the offender.

The order made last week included a 90 day AAMR for an offender who had a record of committing criminal damage whilst drunk. They weren't heavily convicted, but their offences were linked by a common thread of excess alcohol leading to poor behaviour. All being well, the bus shelters of the neighbourhood should be out of harms way for at least the next three months.