{"id":4585,"date":"2015-07-28T11:30:53","date_gmt":"2015-07-28T17:30:53","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/scramsystems.com\/blog\/?p=3987"},"modified":"2021-08-26T12:02:54","modified_gmt":"2021-08-26T18:02:54","slug":"sobriety-tags-stir-debate-in-uk","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.scramsystems.com\/blog\/2015\/07\/sobriety-tags-stir-debate-in-uk\/","title":{"rendered":"Sobriety \u201cTags\u201d Stir Debate in UK"},"content":{"rendered":"

Last summer the\u00a0United Kingdom\u00a0launched its first compulsory \u201calcohol tag\u201d trial,<\/a> and\u00a0earlier this week\u00a0Mayor of London Boris Johnson announced that the\u00a0monitoring devices will soon be rolled out across the capital<\/a>. Over the past year, the City of London\u2019s sobriety pilot\u00a0has\u00a0generated\u00a0an animated and occasionally heated debate across the pond about whether 24\/7 alcohol monitoring is a valuable tool to stem alcohol-related crime or an\u00a0invasion of personal privacy.<\/p>\n

The UK is where the US was\u00a012 years\u00a0ago, when the first Continuous Alcohol Monitoring (CAM)<\/a> bracelets were put to use in the state of Michigan<\/a>, and the US media began to cover what was then a revolutionary technology. Some questioned the government\u2019s right to limit drinking. However, US laws and the Constitution delineate between rights and privileges, and when you\u2019re convicted of a crime, even rights are subject to limitation (i.e., offenders convicted of felonies relinquish the right to vote). While there was what I would term minor debate (and appropriate questions) in the\u00a0United States\u00a0about the \u201cBig Brother\u201d element to 24\/7 alcohol monitoring, compared to the UK over the past year, it was a whisper.<\/p>\n

So What\u2019s the Difference? Alcohol Misuse in the US and UK\u00a0\u00a0<\/strong><\/h3>\n

To begin with, when you think of alcohol-related issues in the US<\/a>, you think of drunk driving first. The US is a country of drivers. Outside of a few major metropolitan areas with comprehensive mass transit, in the US the car is king, making\u00a0drunk driving\u00a0a much more widespread problem\u00a0than in\u00a0the UK. Because of this, in the US the drunk-driving issue is the #1 market for CAM and the place in the judicial system with the most compelling need for Continuous Alcohol Monitoring. In addition, when CAM hit the market, the US public had already been exposed to two decades of intense social messaging about the\u00a0tragedies and risks\u00a0of drunk driving by MADD<\/a> and other organizations. So in 2003, the US public was highly aware of the true horrors of\u00a0impaired driving\u00a0and more open to a little \u201cBig Brother\u201d supervision to tackle the problem.<\/p>\n

Pub Culture<\/h3>\n

In contrast, the UK has a much broader view on individual liberty and a decidedly more cautious approach toward alcohol and crime.\u00a0Moreover,\u00a0drinking is highly ingrained in British culture. The local pub is often the cornerstone of the community, and as Charles Nevin noted in a New York Times<\/em> editorial<\/a>, from Churchill to Chaucer to Cambridge, British history and society \u201cfloats on a sea of booze.\u201d As such, to many in the UK an alcohol monitoring bracelet doesn\u2019t just force someone off the drink\u2014it interferes with their place in the community.<\/p>\n