The Alcohol-Detecting Ankle Bracelet
- posted by Jim Leitzel @ 8:51 AM

Vice Squad has long been fascinated with the Secure Continuous Remote Alcohol Monitor (SCRAM) ankle bracelet. If it works, it can reduce the external costs of alcohol abuse, and possibly reduce the need to target alcohol more generally via an excise tax. SCRAM received some good publicity when a celebrity voluntarily wore one on her way out of a rehabilitation clinic, but the limits of the bracelet were suggested when the celebrity subsequently was arrested on various charges, one of them alcohol-related. (The charges have not been proven, of course. One of them is a felony charge for cocaine possession, which to my mind is more of an indictment of the law than of the arrestee.) Newsweek takes the opportunity to interview an official with the company that makes the alcohol monitor. He indicates that 5 to 10 percent of the uses are voluntary; many of these are initiated by defense attorneys anxious to establish a record of sobriety for their clients.

One of the benefits of a prolonged stay in Tbilisi is that the news of celebrity arrests can take weeks to reach me, or miss me altogether.

Vice Squad first mentioned the bracelet in 2004.

Labels: alcohol, bracelet

 
More Media Coverage of the Alcohol Monitoring Ankle Bracelet
- posted by Jim Leitzel @ 11:16 PM

In today's Chicago Tribune there is a story reprinted from the Denver Post about the use of Vice Squad fetish SCRAM, the "Secure Continuous Remote Alcohol Monitor," in Colorado. SCRAM is the ankle bracelet that uses perspiration on your skin to calculate your blood-alcohol content; some courts are requiring SCRAM for alcohol-related offenders. The monitoring isn't really continuous: it's hourly, but that is much more frequent than with most other alcohol-monitoring technologies. Since 2003, more than 2,000 Coloradans have been outfitted with the ankle bracelet at one time or another, and currently, according to a spokesperson for the manufacturer, 8,000 bracelets are in use nationally. Today's article also notes that the significant monetary cost to the wearer -- about $12 daily and a set-up fee of $50 to $100 -- has led to the ankle bracelet being nicknamed SCAM by some of its customers.

Vice Squad last noted the SCRAM bracelet in February, when the Attorney General of South Dakota was sporting one.

Labels: alcohol, bracelet

 
Self-Experimentation by an Attorney General
- posted by Jim Leitzel @ 11:33 AM

You know those alcohol-detecting ankle bracelets that can monitor and report how much you have been drinking? Do you think that they really work? Well, I don't know if they work, and neither did the Attorney General of South Dakota. So he wore an ankle bracelet for three days, and somehow convinced three of his staffers to wear bracelets, too. Then he testified about his experience to a legislative commitee, revealing some details about the life of an Attorney General in the process:

The first day, he said, he had a couple of beers with dinner and "then I went home and made a bowl of popcorn and had a substantial glass of wine and watched the ballgame."

His blood-alcohol content gradually rose to 0.06, which is under the legal limit for operating a motor vehicle, but would be too much for a wearer in a zero-tolerance program.

After three days, he said, "The bracelet is sophisticated. It works as advertised, and it accurately reflected exactly how much alcohol I had to drink and when I had it to drink.''

His testimony apparently was compelling, as his request for funds to buy the bracelets was approved unanimously by the South Dakota House.

Tyler Cowen at Marginal Revolution touts self-experimentation and Seth Robert's analysis of the technique. Does the Attorney General of South Dakota read Marginal Revolution?

Labels: alcohol, bracelet, South Dakota

 
Keeping Troublesome Drunks Away From Alcohol
- posted by Jim Leitzel @ 7:09 PM

An "ideal" regulation raises barriers to socially costly manifestations of the activity in question, while not troubling the socially beneficial or benign manifestations. Alcohol controls that prevent problematic drinking while being non-issues for non-problematic drinking are one type of such ideal controls. Vice Squad previously has noted alcohol detection bracelets that can deter people from using alcohol. Now Britain is intending to make more use of existing laws that bar those convicted of alcohol-related offenses from buying booze:

The British government is updating a 1902 "three-strikes" law that says anyone convicted of three offenses related to drunkenness within 12 months can be prohibited from buying alcohol for three years, the Daily Telegraph reported June 21.

The language of the century-old law has been updated in the Licensing Act 2003 currently before Parliament. The Home Office's Police Standards Unit is encouraging police to "make more use" of the 1902 law.

The measure also urges police to use the authority given to them under 1980 legislation to prohibit individuals convicted of violence in pubs, clubs, or bars from patronizing such establishments again.

Apologies for the reduced blogging lately, but I am not in Chicago, and that makes it hard to maintain the hometown blogging pace. Fortunately, my co-bloggers heard my call for help and picked up...oh, no, that's right, they have been silent. Sigh. My co-bloggers -- all of whom are smashing folks, incidentally -- don't even read Vice Squad?

Labels: alcohol, bracelet, Britain, solipsism

 
Wisconsin Tests the Alcohol Monitoring Ankle Bracelet
- posted by Jim Leitzel @ 2:55 PM

In mid-April Vice Squad noted the ability of the bracelet to provide hourly reports on alcohol consumption. If early successes are borne out, the bracelet could go a long way towards keeping those who have a history of misbehaving when under the influence away from alcohol, without imposing on those who drink responsibly. Now Racine, Wisconsin is trying out the device, named SCRAM. The price seems to have fallen, from $12 per day to $10 per day.

Labels: alcohol, bracelet

 
Personal Alcohol Licenses and a New Way to Measure Alcohol Consumption
- posted by Jim Leitzel @ 10:10 AM

When a person misbehaves under the influence of alcohol, I think it is a reasonable policy to revoke, for some period of time, that person's drinking privilege. Some people already are enjoined from using alcohol as a condition of probation or pre-trial release; the standard way of enforcing the no alcohol condition is to submit the targeted individual to random checks, or to require him or her to be at home at certain times (three times per day, typically) to take breathalyzer exams. Recently, Mark Kleiman suggested that we could broaden the alcohol licensing system, while using sellers as the first line of enforcement: just as sellers currently must check to see that an alcohol purchaser meets minimum age requirements, they could also check for a valid "drinker's license." Mark suggested that sellers form the front lines for enforcement because it would be too difficult for the state to enforce a general drinking license requirement.

But technology might be progressing to the point where it is possible to reliably track the drinking behavior of large numbers of people at relatively low cost. Alcohol Monitoring Systems, Inc., manufactures an 8-ounce ankle bracelet that measures alcohol concentration through ethanol that passes through the skin. The bracelet measures and records alcohol consumption on an hourly basis, and once the bracelet is fitted, the tests themselves do not require any active participation on the part of the wearer. The bracelets are designed to detect and record attempts at tampering, too.

The bracelet is already in use in some court systems. While it's a better deal than jail, the bracelet is far from free: according to the linked article, in Seneca County, Ohio, "The device would cost offenders a $100 refundable deposit, a $75 installation fee and $12 a day." In-home breathalyzers are slightly less expensive, though they do not offer the same disincentive to drink, as those tests are not conducted hourly.

In Professor Kleiman's post, he lists five potential downsides to alcohol licensing. The bracelet system could be employed on a fairly large scale, however, effectively providing the same benefits of more general licensing while skirting four of the five identified problems. The one problem that the system doesn't skirt is that alcohol sellers would lose some of their best customers, but that is a problem that mankind can bear.

Labels: alcohol, bracelet, driving, licensing