The impact of alcohol abuse and addiction on our society is a factor that is widely researched, and the strong link between criminal behavior—especially violent behavior—and alcohol has been an issue of public policy concern for decades.

In recent years, there has been a paradigm shift in the criminal justice system when it comes to addressing alcohol abuse and crime. Treatment-versus incarceration-has emerged as the preferred method for addressing alcohol offenders in the criminal justice system. According to the National Center on Addiction and Substance Abuse (CASA) at Columbia University, if only 10% of substance-involved inmates (who comprise nearly 80% of the criminal justice system) are successfully treated and trained, the economic benefit in the first year of work-after release would be $8.6 billion. At the conservative end, successfully treating and training just 10,000 addicts would eliminate approximately one-million crimes each and every year.

The Periodic/Random Alcohol Testing Fallacy
While periodic/random drug testing methods in use today can provide a snapshot of an offender’s drug use over an extended period of time; however, monitoring for alcohol consumption is more difficult. The body metabolizes alcohol very quickly, and once this process is complete, there are no trace elements left to facilitate detection.

A 190-pound adult male will take less than five hours to go from the legal DUI limit of .08 BAC to .00 BAC. That means that unless you test at least once every three to four hours—a practical impossibility with current periodic/random testing programs—you will be unable to detect most drinking events.

Effective, Continuous Monitoring: An essential element for true behavior change
From the more than 700 Drug Courts in existence today to increased spending on alcohol treatment and rehabilitation, both addiction and criminal justice experts continue struggling to find effective, affordable methods for addressing the problem of alcohol and recidivism. And one of the biggest obstacles in the war on alcoholism is the absence of an effective, affordable method for monitoring alcohol abstinence—continuously—over a long period of time. Until now.

With SCRAM, your program can benefit from both the influential role continuous monitoring can play in the treatment process and your ability to intervene early in the event of a relapse.