Police seized 20,945 litres of alcoholic drinks (44,265 pints) from underage drinkers during a February half term clamp down on public drinking, Home Office Minister Vernon Coaker announced.
The £760,000 Home Office-funded campaign took place from 8-24 February 2008 in 165 police force areas across 39 forces in England and Wales.
Presented by the government as a success, in the coming months the government will publish a Youth Alcohol Action Plan which will focus on providing information for parents and young people to make sensible and healthy decisions around drinking, as well as continuing to reduce drinking in public and underage sales.
The campaign was targeted to coincide with the school half term holiday. Acting on public tip-offs and local intelligence, police officers and Police Community Support Officers (PCSOs) approached groups of youngsters in underage drinking hotspots and confiscated alcohol wherever they found it. At the same time they asked how old the children were and from where they had obtained alcohol. Most refused to or would not (could not?!) say.
If they thought crime and disorder was likely to occur, officers also used directions to leave powers to disperse threatening groups.
The national campaign, which followed a much smaller pilot during the October 2007 half term, produced the following figures:
25 per cent of the 5,143 youngsters who surrendered alcohol to the police said they were aged 15 or under
a total of 23,621 youngsters came into contact with the police when alcohol was confiscated
3,585 directions to leave were issued
of the 30 per cent who divulged where they had sourced their alcohol, half said they had bought it from a shop.
What they say
Home Office Minister Vernon Coaker said: ‘Confiscating alcohol is just one part of our strategy to address the damage and disruption that underage drinking causes to youngsters, their families and the communities they live in. We are working across Government to combine tough enforcement of the law with effective alcohol education for children and parents and to help young people find alternative things to do.
‘I know the public will welcome police action to disperse groups of threatening youths and choke their supply of alcohol. This campaign will not be the last.
‘I also want to remind parents of their responsibility and where poor parenting is identified as an issue I want to see greater use of parenting contracts to tackle persistent underage drinking. I also want to see greater sharing of information between police and local agencies about repeat offenders to address problems as early as possible.
‘Police officers tell me that these campaigns yield valuable intelligence about where children get their alcohol. With this in mind, I want to send a strong signal once again to those persistent few irresponsible retailers that deliberately sell to under-18s. They will be caught and they will be punished. I also want to congratulate all the officers involved in what was clearly a successful campaign for their hard work and dedication.’
The law
The Confiscation of Alcohol (Young Persons) Act 1997 provides police officers in uniform and designated PCSOs the power to remove alcohol from persons under 18 in a public place where alcohol is being consumed or the officer reasonably suspects consumption is about to take place. AndSection 27 of the Violent Crime Reduction Act 2006 provides police officers in uniform with the power to issue a direction to an individual aged 16 years or over who is in a public place to leave a locality. The direction will prohibit their return to that locality for a specified period not exceeding 48 hours.
For type of alcohol and where bought from visit:
