POLICE GET NEW POWERS TO MOVE ALCOHOL AND DRUG ABUSERS

WA policewill be able to detain anyone intoxicated in public, including
juveniles, under new laws that apply from today.

Police Minister Kevin Prince said the protective custody laws were designed
to protect people under the influence of alcohol and other drugs. They
might be taken home to sober up, to a sobering-up shelter or a medical service.

They would be taken to a police lockup only as a last resort.

Under the old law, police could detain adults for their own safety who were
drunk in public. But juveniles, or people abusing legal substances such as
petrol, paint or glue, or illegal drugs could not be held.

The new law allows police, or authorised officers such as from Aboriginal
community groups, to intervene regardless of the intoxicating substance.

They will be able to forcibly remove people to a safe place to sober up.
There is no provision in the new Protective Custody Act for the person
removed to be charged.

The changes also give police power to seize intoxicating substances from
young people they fear are planning to become intoxicated.

Mr Prince said it was hard to say how many juveniles were becoming
intoxicated on the street but it might be as many as a couple of hundred at
any one time.

The problem was worst in areas such as Northbridge, parts of central Perth,
Rockingham, Midland and Fremantle.

Derbarl Yerrigan Health Service director Ted Wilkes said Aboriginal people
would be among the main targets of the new law.

"There's no doubt that our mob are very visible, we don't deny that,
there's a lot of our mob sitting around and they will be targeted," he said.

But Mr Wilkes and Aboriginal Legal Service chief executive Dennis Eggington
said the Government's failure to pay for Aboriginal-run sobering-up and
detoxification places in Perth would undermine the Act.

The Salvation Army-run sobering-up centre in Highgate has been made the
designated metropolitan area shelter for drunk people to be taken under the
new laws.

Mr Wilkes said the Salvation Army had very good intentions but Aboriginal
people would avoid mainstream shelters.

"Our mob would shy away if it was seen as being run by white people," Mr
Wilkes said.

Mr Eggington said unless appropriate sobering-up and detoxification
facilities were provided for Aboriginal people the laws would be seen as
just sweeping people off the street.

Aboriginal groups had been trying for a long time to get approval for a
detoxification centre but no one wanted one in their backyard.

Mr Prince said the Government had come up against a similar problem in
trying to get a sobering-up shelter in Midland.

He would consider the call for more dedicated Aboriginal services. "We pick
up quite a number of intoxicated non-Aborigines," he said.