Domestic Abuse: Victims and Survivors

Baroness Jenkin of Kennington Excerpts

Thursday 12th December 2024 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Jenkin of Kennington (Con)]

My Lords, this is a story about how long it takes for good ideas to get on to the statute book before being finally implemented. In February 2010, Kit Malthouse, London’s then deputy mayor for policing, attended a conference and heard about the South Dakota 24/7 sobriety project, the aim of which is to reduce the recidivism of offenders who drive under the influence of alcohol or commit domestic violence when drunk. Between 25% and 50% of domestic violence incidents are linked to alcohol consumption. The project mandates offenders to a period of enforced alcohol abstinence. In the US, this is monitored by daily breathalyser tests paid for by the offenders. If they do not turn up or if they test positive, they are subject to flash incarceration for a day or two. Convinced that this model could help reduce violence in the night-time economy and domestic violence, Malthouse campaigned to conduct the first trial of 24/7 sobriety in Europe.

The alcohol abstinence monitoring requirement, or AAMR, was introduced in the LASPO Act 2012. I am proud to have played my part in persuading the then Justice Secretary, the noble Lord, Lord Clarke of Nottingham, to accept amendments which permit courts in England and Wales to impose a requirement for an offender to abstain from alcohol and be regularly tested to ensure compliance. Various AAMR pilots were conducted using sobriety bracelets, with a compliance rate of 94%.

In 2020, 10 years after Kit Malthouse began campaigning, an SI enabled a rollout of the AAMR, followed in 2022 by alcohol monitoring on licence. Here is how it works. The tag takes a sample of the wearer’s sweat every 30 minutes and provides a continuous record of whether the offender has been drinking. If the tag detects alcohol or is tampered with, an alert is sent to the Probation Service. If an offender breaks their alcohol ban, they can face a return to court or a prison sentence. Recent data shows a rapid rise in the use of alcohol monitoring post-release, but it is still very low. It would appear that prison governors are using it most. Does the Minister know why the Parole Board is not using this option at the same rate? Would the Minister agree that, if people are to be released early from prison, monitoring via tags might increase the number of candidates for early release?

I understand that a new agreement has been reached to supply more tags, but now that the effectiveness of the intervention has been proven, what is needed is more competition for better, cheaper devices. US data shows that keeping men sober in the community on these schemes helps reduce violence in the home. However, I believe this to be underresearched here. Will the Home Office agree to fund such research and explore how we can use this technology to keep even more women safe from abuse? It is a cheap option, enables safer early release, keeps men out of prison, and reduces much alcohol-fuelled abuse and probably death. Compulsory sobriety has the potential to be a game-changer. Will the Minister commit to looking into it further and giving it a very good push?