It is an accepted fact by legal practitioners in our courts of law that alcohol related crime keeps most criminal lawyers in business.   Anecdotal evidence that crimes of violence and public disorder are almost always fuelled by alcohol is overwhelming, but there seems to be little political will to accept or tackle the problem.  Politicians, for example, blandly deny that the extension to licensing hours has aggravated the situation, but ask the police officer who is frequently called to scenes of public violence at all night drinking establishments, ask the defence solicitor who crawls  to the police station in the middle of the night to attempt to take instructions from an inebriated client, or ask a prosecutor who is required daily to prosecute whole lists of drink related violent crimes.

And it is not just men who are responsible for these offences.  The Youth Justice Board has revealed figures to show that crimes carried out by girls between the ages of 10 and 17 have risen by 25 per cent in three years with violent attacks rising by 50 per cent, much of it drink related.

The unhappy result for the law abiding public is that there are fewer safe areas which can be visited on foot in our cities and towns, particularly in the hours of darkness.  The danger is that an individual may be set upon merely because another, whose judgment is clouded by alcohol, perceived an unwelcome glance in his direction; or it may be that an attack will happen just because the victim happens to be on the street and for no other ascertainable reason.

If we are to go about our daily lives in relative peace and safety, sooner or later these issues must be faced and dealt with.  It is tempting to suggest a raft of new legislation to deal more severely with alcohol related crime, but there is little in the welter of various measures which have been introduced in the last 10 years to indicate that would have any real effect.  A starting point may well be to limit licensing hours to those in force before the ill-advised 24 hour drinking laws were introduced.

A better view, however, would be if the Home Office initiated urgent empirical research into the number of drink related crimes which came before the courts so that the true scale of the problem could be assessed.  Although new legislative measures may then be considered, the fundamental task will be an enormous public relations exercise to re-educate the general public about the dangers and the overall effects on each of our lives of over-consumption of alcohol.  It must be a long term exercise:  it must start in our schools and in our places of worship, and it must infiltrate every aspect of our being because unless there is a real change to society’s attitude as a whole, the outlook will remain bleak.