Civil Commitment in WA:
Lessons From a Forgotten Era For Managing Public Drunkenness

The research project will be used to develop an understanding of other jurisdictions which had similar approaches towards public drunkenness & which had undertaken reforms, such as decriminalisation of public drunkenness, alternative options for police to manage intoxicated persons & the growing use of coercive powers exercised through specialist courts built upon the principles of therapeutic jurisprudence.

This research project will consist of a number of sub studies that will enable examination of the 12 year period from 1963 to 1974, when the Convicted Inebriates’ Rehabilitation Act 1963 (CIRA) was in force in Western Australia (WA), when a person could be sentenced for a term of up to 12 months imprisonment.

The CIRA permitted the lower courts to imprison an offender who had committed an offence where drunkenness was an element or contributory cause of the offence if the court also declared the person was a 'convicted inebriate'. Such a declaration meant that an offender was placed in a low security prison farm under the control of the Prisons Department. Whilst the individual was managed as a sentenced prisoner, there was also some ongoing input & oversight by the Convicted Inebriates Board as it exercised powers for seeking early release depending on compliance with the Board's nominated rehabilitative goals.

The Convicted Inebriates Board ceased in November 1974 after the commencement of the WA Alcohol and Drug Authority (WAADA) which was established under the Alcohol and Drug Authority Act 1974 (ADAA). Even though the power to obtain a court order to sentence an inebriate was transferred to the Director of the WAADA, it is believed this power was never exercised up to when the CIRA was repealed in November 1989.

The research project will compare WA with a number of other jurisdictions by examining:

1. the variety of socio-legal mechanisms exercised by police & other agencies in relation to those who abuse alcohol;
2. the role & scope of public health measures in addressing alcohol problems;
3. the development & operation of liquor licensing laws intended to regulate the sale & consumption of alcohol; &
4. policies & services implemented by governments to manage alcohol & consequences of its use.

Decriminalisation of drunkenness

This area will examine the consequences of the decriminalisation of public drunkenness that occurred in WA in December 1989 in response to the many problems that had been highlighted by the Royal Commission into Aboriginal Deaths in Custody (RCIADIC), which first published an interim report in 1985.

This area will also document reforms of the powers available to police and the courts to deal with those who commit alcohol related offences. This will include charting law reforms of long standing vagrancy and public nuisance laws which had targeted public drunkenness and of relevant case law from WA and other jurisdictions concerning permissible police powers in relation to public order problems stemming from alcohol use.

Managing alcohol & other drug related problems

This area will involve consideration of the roles of health agencies, in addition to the police, who have become increasingly important in dealing with alcohol & other drug related health and social problems. There will also be a consideration of outcomes of sobering up shelters (SUCs) in WA, the majority of which are located in the North West & largely service the indigenous population. (The function of SUCs are to provide an overnight non medical residential program where individuals can be taken by police for short term management of their alcohol intoxication.)

The establishment of SUCs was a key outcome of the decriminalisation of drunkenness in WA with the enactment of the Acts Amendment (Detention of Drunken Persons) Act 1989, which amended both the Police Act 1892 & the Child Welfare Act 1947.

As valuable information to enable research into the role of government & developments in services & policies is contained in annual reports, an archive of WAADA published reports has been assembled.

Click here to go to a page with a listing of Annual reports & which summarises major organisational changes in WA from 1974 to the present.

Click here to go to a page which sets out various Alcohol & drug strategies & related action plans which have been developed by various governments in WA from 1990 to the present.

Official inquiries into managing alcohol & other drug related problems

The growing role of government in this State in managing alcohol related problems will be examined in relation to four official inquiries between 1972 and 1995 which encompassed both alcohol & other drugs. Compared to the inquiries up to 1995, the four subsequent official inquiries between 1997 & 2007 have explicitly excluded consideration of alcohol related problems.

The following official inquiries have been conducted in WA since the early 1970s (none of which included tobacco):

• 1972: Investigation Into Drugs & Alcohol by Dr AS Ellis
• 1973: Royal Commission Into the Treatment of Alcohol & Drug Dependents
• 1984: Select Committee Into Alcohol & Other Drugs
• 1995: Task Force on Drug Abuse
• 1997-1998: Select Committee Into Misuse of Drugs Act 1981
• 2002-2004: Working Party on Drug Law Reform
• 2007: Statutory Review of Cannabis Control Act 2003

Click here to go to a page with more detailed descriptions of these inquiries & to be able to view or download copies of reports published by each inquiry.

Official inquiries into liquor licensing control

This area will outline approaches that governments in WA compared to a number of other juridictions have implemented to regulate the supply and availability of alcohol, permissible conduct by those who consume alcohol and consequences for those who abuse alcohol. This will include review of a number of the official inquiries that occurred. The following official inquiries have been conducted in WA since the early 1920s:

• 1922: Royal Commission on Licensing Act
• 1958: Parliamentary Committee Into the Liquor Licensing Act
• 1969: Inquiry Into the Licensing Act 1911
• 1984: Liquor Laws Royal Commission
• 1987: Liquor Act 1970 Review
• 1994: Independent Review of Liquor Licensing
• 1995: Review of Liquor Licensing Act 1988
• 2005: Independent Review of the Liquor Licensing Act 1988
• 2005: Assessment of Impacts of Liquor Licensing Reforms

Click here to go to a page with more detailed descriptions of these inquiries & to be able to view or download copies of reports published by each inquiry.

Therapeutic jurisprudence

The research project will be used to develop a critical understanding of a growing emphasis by governments since the early 1990s of utilising coercive approaches in relation to those who use drugs other than alcohol. In Australia this focus was championed by the former Commonwealth Liberal National Party government of John Howard through its National Illicit Drugs Initiative (NIDS) campaign, Tough on drugs, launched in late 1997.

In WA as in other Australian & overseas jurisdictions, government was historically concerned with using the criminal justice system to target those who were problematic users of alcohol. However, in Australia over the past 25 years governments have redirected their focus away from problematic users of alcohol to drugs other than alcohol, especially those who use heroin, cannabis and amphetamine type stimulants (ATS). This is reflected in a variety of conditional cautioning, pre & post conviction diversion schemes & drug courts that now operate in most Australian jurisdictions.

The research will identify the extent to which this largely forgotten period in WA history may share common features with the more recent development of ‘problem solving courts’ (PSCs). The rationale for the development of PSCs is that they are regarded by legislators, the courts and law enforcement agencies as more effective and better suited than the mainstream court processes for dealing with minor crime, anti social behaviour & intractable social problems, such as abuse of illicit drugs, mental illness & domestic violence.

The increased adoption of PSCs represents a shift in managing offenders with intractable social problems away from the traditional punishment focussed approach of criminal courts to court settings specifically established to focus on rehabilitation & reform of offenders.

The development of PSCs is now recognised as belonging within a broader framework referred to as ‘therapeutic jurisprudence', which has developed over the past two decades since the opening in 1989 of a drug court in Dade County in the State of Florida. The feature of drug courts is that they set out to create a court setting which largely avoids an adversarial model, limits the involvement of legal counsel and instead gives primacy to the role of the judge or magistrate to oversee and monitor the diversion of drug offenders into treatment programs.

The adoption of some of the key principles of therapeutic jurisprudence has occurred in Australia over the past decade with the establishment of drug courts and other forms of judicial supervision of minor drug offenders in WA & most Australian jurisdictions. A common feature of these schemes is they are designed to ‘compel’ those whose offending has involved the use of drugs other than alcohol to participate in treatment programs. This approach has been referred to as coerced voluntarism.