Introduction

The Alcohol Treatment Requirement (ATR) became available to the courts as a sentencing option for offences committed on or after 4 April 2005 by people aged 18 or over as defined in the Criminal Justice Act 2003. It is one of 12 requirements that can be applied to a Community Order for six months to three years or a Suspended Sentence Order for six months to two years (for discussion of the Drug Rehabilitation Requirement, see Gough, Chapter Four, this volume, and Heath, Chapter Five, this volume; for discussion of the Mental Health Treatment Requirement, see Pakes and Winstone, Chapter Six, this volume). The orders can be proposed for high, medium and low seriousness sentencing bands; however, the expectation is that it would not be used at low level. Under section 212 of the Act, a court can impose an ATR if it is satisfied that:

• 1. the person convicted is dependent upon alcohol (which does not have to have caused or contributed to the offence for which they have been convicted);

• 2. the dependency requires and is susceptible to treatment;

• 3. arrangements can be made to provide that treatment; and

• 4. the convicted person expresses a willingness to comply with the requirements of the order.

The National Offender Management Service Annual report 2009/10 (NOMS, 2011) shows that, nationally, there was an aggregated annual target of 2,680 completions for the ATR with actual completions being 5,511, so targets were exceeded, giving an indication of the extent of need in this area of work.

Alcohol is a significant factor in the causation of a wide range of social problems, including crime, and therefore has serious impact upon the delivery of criminal justice. In their review of the work undertaken by the National Probation Service, McSweeney et al (2009) identified that the most common interventions core-funded through the NOMS to address alcohol problems were nationally accredited programmes, namely: the Drink Impaired Drivers Scheme, the Integrated Domestic Abuse Programme, the Alcohol Treatment Requirement, the Offender Substance Abuse Programme and also Brief Interventions. This chapter will discuss the ATR through drawing upon research carried out by the author, which investigated the delivery of the ATR in one probation area.