Drunk Tanks - [url=http://newsthump.com/2013/09/18/private-sector-to-add-bars-and-music-to-drunk-tanks/a great business opportunity for the leisure sector![/url

What happens when the powers that be at G4S start setting targets to hit, 12 drunks a night so we are in profit?
How will people be judged that they've had too much to drink?
Who judges them and what training/background checks will they have?

Some people talk nonsense - "People nowadays get tanked up on Supermarket ale before going out". It's always been the case having a few before you go out, or go to the pub for happy hour or have a few in the local before we go out etc.

Most of the idiots that cause trouble are fuelled by cocaine, not alcohol, its just some Tory minister that hasn't been on a night out in 50 years, what next Police State?

Honest to God, every time I've ever been out I've had a skin full but I can handle it and other than when I've been abroad I've never seen many people spewing/unconscious on the floor in any pub or town centre.

No problem with a drunk tank in a City centre/Town centre but the people placed into them must be done by Police and not to a private firm and must only be on the basis that they are paralytic, which like I said before is a rare site. It would be a complete waste of money IMO if run by Government and if taken on by G4S then the private firm would start setting targets to cover the costs and start nicking anyone who's had a drink to meet their quota, would end up like the Gestapo.

Sorry, am oot!

Don't they just.


No, it hasn't.


Most?
If that's the case, shouldn't we should be testing those scraped off the floor for cocaine?


What does this mean?
That you are immune to the effects of alcohol or that you know when enough is enough?

I don't see the point of drunk tanks, it's not tackling the problem at the right point.
Serving people whose behaviour/demeanour/speech/swaying/whatever suggests they've already had enough or too much is, to me, where the problem should be nipped.

When did I last see someone drunk and incapable in a town centre?
I wasn't in a city centre last weekend, so two weeks ago.

I like a pint as much as anyone, I drink to enjoy what I'm drinking and relax.
Getting drunk is only a consequence in the increasingly rare event that I misjudge it at a celebration or suchlike... it is absolutely never the idea I go out with as a target.

Good point, think how you would feel having misjudged yourself and ended up a little drunk and then thrown in a drunk tank and fined £400. Its a load of cobblers, the police would initially be in control of putting people in and because they were dragging officers from their duty and costing the tax payer too much it would all be sent to G4S and we would have a privatised police force patrolling city/town centres nicking people to meet their quotas. Then Joe public would find other ways to entertain themselves and stay away from the centres etc etc etc and so on.

Its not unusual for Chief Constables to make political statements seemingly "on behalf" of the police, its also not unusual for Chief Constables to take up political positions when they leave their posts and therefore its not unusual for incumbent governments to agree with them.

It shouldn't therefore be a surprise that in this particular case its a Chief Constable who is suggesting that another agency should take care of drunken behavior or that profit could be made from this venture, he's lining himself up for a nice little advisory role in the next government or a directorship in "Drunks-R-Us Corp" on the assumption that its a blue government.

Correct, are we heading towards a totalitarian state?

Not yet.
But lobbing people into a drunk tank just on the dubious judgement of some quota-driven employee of a privatised company whose only incentive is profit rather than a sense of civic responsibility would be possibly one step on the road you suggest.

To be constitutionally compliant, arrest would have to be done by the police so, basically, what is being suggested is that the police contract-out the transport and containment.

Quite how that is an improvement over the current situation, I don't see.

Would they have to be arrested though ?

To be detained yes, but there are already initiatives (as seen occasionally on TV) where specialist NHS-provided units are set up in temporary units in town centres so that the dangerously intoxicated (dangerous to their well being/life) are cared for and taken off the streets until sober.

Currently I'm assuming that those NHS units are funded by the NHS Trust concerned and they see a benefit in keeping their Casualty Depts free of drunkards and their ambulance staff are able to spend less time ferrying drunks around.

But if you could only find a way to simply ferry those drunks to a medical facility like that "in the interest of their own own safety and well being", and then charge them for it without the need for arrest then that would be a nice little earner for a private health provider wouldn't it ?

Probably led by a former chief constable of course.

Well, if they agree to accompany a non-policeman to the tank, then no they wouldn't.
But, if they took exception at being invited into a vehicle by some jobsworth-heavy and were bundled-in anyway, I'd call that kidnapping.
Constitutional slippery-slope, that.

Nah,

If there is money in it somewhere then there will be a qualification invented for "duty of care providers for drunk people" or similar, a fancy badge and a hi-viz vest and bobs your uncle.

If I'd told you twenty years ago that a pub could have a badged heavy on the door who would be allowed to prevent, by force if necessary, your entry to the premises then you'd have laughed.