BINGE drinkers and revellers who fall foul of the law are to be offered courses to help them change their attitudes to booze.
The Tackling Alcohol Safer Communities (Tasc) course will be available to people who are arrested for drunken offences or are excluded from pubs and clubs because of their behaviour.
As well as learning about the effects of alcohol — on their health and on the wider society — those who complete the course will get their fines or periods of exclusion halved.
The course has been piloted across Swansea and Neath Port Talbot for the last year, but was officially launched at the headquarters of West Glamorgan Council on Alcohol and Drug Abuse (WGCADA) centre in Uplands this afternoon.
South Wales Police Chief Superintendent Julian Williams said: "I welcome the launch of the Tasc course.
"It will no doubt be a welcome contribution to an innovative mix of initiatives to helping to make nightlife safer in Swansea, Neath and Port Talbot.
"We need to change the behaviour of the minority who can't control their behaviour after excessive alcohol."
The three hour course covers a range of subjects from what alcohol is and how it effects the body through to Government guidelines for safer drinking, the alcohol industry and advertising, binge drinking and the wider impacts on family friends and society of drunken behaviour.
The course will be offered to people who have been arrested for a section 5 public order offence where alcohol has been involved, for being drunk and incapable or for being drunk and disorderly - if they go on the course the £80 Public Notice for Disorder (PND) they are given will be halved.
Tasc will also be offered to people who have been banned from pubs in Swansea or Neath Port Talbot under exclusion schemes - the duration of the ban will be halved if they agree to go on the course.
The launch was told that while 95 per cent of those given a PND are male, the figure for those banned from pubs and clubs by exclusion orders was just 57 per cent.
Lisa Shipton, from WGCADA, is one of those who runs the Monday evening courses.
She said the sessions were making a positive contribution to people's behaviour.
She said: "We want people to enjoy themselves when visiting our vibrant nightlife, but it has to be responsibly.
"The Tasc course is aimed at the minority whose behaviour becomes unacceptable after a few too many drinks.
"We have received positive feedback from people who have attended the course during the pilot period."
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