'I spent a day in the pub to test out the anti-boozing ankle tags'

The tag lock clicked into place as the device was fastened around my right ankle and tightened to fit so it won’t jostle around.

It doesn’t quite clamp against my skin, by design there’s a bit of space between the device and me, but it’s noticeably there. A chunky block sticking to my ankle.

I don't think it was ever in my job description that I was going to get electronically tagged but somehow I've ended up spending my Thursday morning in the Ministry of Justice getting fitted for an ankle bracelet.

It's the start of my day wearing the SCRAM continuous alcohol monitoring bracelet, or SCRAM CAM for short, and since this is meant to detect if you've been drinking alcohol I've got to go to the pub to generate results for it.

Rolled out across England and Wales, courts use these to monitor people’s alcohol intake as the device is able to tell if someone’s been drinking and has ways to suss out whether they’re trying to cheat it.

One of the problems with other forms of alcohol monitoring such as a breathalyser is they can only test for alcohol at the time someone is being tested.

The SCRAM CAM transmits data every 30 minutes and collects its evidence from bodily functions you can't stop happening, so if you've been drinking it's going to find out.

Your humble writer had to get fitted with an ankle tag for this experience (LADbible)

A trip to the pub

Respectable citizen that I am, dear reader, you'll not be shocked to learn that I have never before been electronically tagged.

Before heading for the pub to generate some results there's a waiting period where I'm monitored to establish my ‘baseline’ so the bracelet knows what sober Joe’s readings look like and what to compare it against.

At this point the tag is sending readings every two minutes, but once we’ve got my baseline those readings drop back to every 30 minutes.

It’s about 12:10pm by the time I’m in a pub consuming my first alcoholic drink of the day.

Over the next couple of hours or so I get through a couple of vodkas and three pints to give the SCRAM CAM something to detect, and it's safe to say I'm feeling the effects.

Those measuring my alcohol intake reckoned I’d quaffed about eight units in the span of a couple of hours, definitely too much to be safely driving a car or operating heavy machinery, but it should get some noticeable results.

It knows if you've tried to take it off (LADbible)

How the SCRAM CAM works

At this point I'm wondering how this gizmo strapped to my ankle is meant to measure whether I've been drinking or not, the ankle is not typically the window into the bodily habits.

Here's the science-y bit, of the alcohol I’m quaffing about 95 percent of it will be dealt with by my liver, and another four percent comes out through the lungs and kidneys.

That final one percent is what the SCRAM CAM monitors, my body deals with that last bit of alcohol by releasing it through the skin so transdermal testing will pick it up.

Every 30 minutes the SCRAM CAM sends the next data reading to a base station device, which then transmits that information onto SCRAM for their team to monitor.

That means there's a human on the other end who can see if I've been drinking alcohol or tried to tamper with the device in some way.

If the devices move too far away from each other then the SCRAM CAM keeps taking readings ready to transmit once it's back in range.

Rolled out in London in 2014 and across England and Wales from 2020 onwards, SCRAM tells me their device data gets used in court cases and when it's gone to trial they haven't lost yet.

Wearing an ankle monitor

It's a bulky thing and you're not going to forget it's strapped to your ankle, especially while walking, every step is a reminder it's there.

While it's a bit of a chunky block it was fortunately small enough to conceal beneath the hem of my jeans, not entirely invisible but not poking out where anyone would spot it either.

Anyone who had a particular intention to stare at my ankles that day would have been able to spot I was wearing an ankle tag, but on that day nobody seems to have been fixated upon them.

Or if they were nobody decided to come and tell me they'd spotted the tag.

Thank goodness we weren't in heatwave weather or I might have had to wear shorts, and then there'd have been no hiding it.

The SCRAM CAM is a sturdy, bulky device whose makers assure me there’s a future model in the works, they’re hoping can be one third the size of the blocky object I wore.

Fortunately for me, the version I’ve been fitted with comes ‘pre-broken’, meaning I can look forward to taking it off at the end of the day.

That’s not the case for those who are ordered to wear it. The tag stays on for the duration of their sentence and it’s not coming off until you’re finished.

That’s not to say people haven’t tried to trick the device.

SCRAM staff told me about a trio of the more novel ways people have tried to trick the device’s sensor, include sliding raw chicken skin between their ankle and the monitor, attempting to block the device by sliding a condom down there or slipping in a slice of bologna.

There are always going to be people ordered to wear it who can’t find a way round the mechanism.

There was the case of one of the tag wearers thinking he’d cracked the formula for fooling it by sitting in his garden and drinking while he kept his ankle submerged in a paddling pool to stay cool in the hopes he wouldn't generate sweat to find.

It didn’t work.

The tag sends data to the base station, which transmits that to SCRAM, and they'll know what you've been up to (SCRAM)

A durable device

I’m told people do try and break these things off from time to time, but the tag knows when it has been removed and the level of force you’d need to try and break it is not something you’d want to be applying to an object attached to you.

Around 5,100 people in England and Wales are wearing these things and I’m assured that the vast majority of them are very well behaved.

In fact, 97 percent of people fitted with one of these ankle monitors stop drinking and stay off the alcohol. Once they’ve reached the end of their allotted time some of them even ask if they can keep wearing it as they reckon it'll help stop them from going back to the bottle.

One person even got a tattoo of the SCRAM CAM on their ankle to keep a reminder of where it used to be.

Across the pond the around 20,000 Americans who wear one are also largely well behaved, though SCRAM tells me one American returned their ankle monitor with a bullet in it.

With me every step of the way

Back in the pub, we wait for my body to start processing the hit of alcohol from the first pint, and for the SCRAM CAM to make its next update on how I’m doing.

The first uptick in results start coming in at 1:10pm, about an hour into the session.

We're done in the pub at about 2:30pm and I journey back to LADbible Towers, certainly feeling the effects of my session.

The tag doesn't feel too intrusive while I'm sat down, but I definitely still know it’s there, and as I'm sobering up over the course of the shift the SCRAM CAM is feeding back data.

For the next couple of hours my body is still processing the alcohol in my system, and by 4:47pm I get my highest reading as my Transdermal Alcohol Concentration (TAC) rises to 0.074 percent.

I'm later told this would class as a 'high' alcohol event, over the drink drive limit and definitely the sort of thing I'd get into a lot of trouble for if I were wearing one of these with the instructions to stay away from alcohol.

My SCRAM CAM results from the day wearing it (SCRAM)

Evening wear

Since I’m tasked with wearing this thing all day it stays on for the remainder of my shift and it’s coming out with me for an evening out in London.

At about 7pm I’m in the queue to get into Les Miserables - because I'm a cultured soul - with the tag around my ankle, thinking ‘please don’t notice this’ as I go through security.

'It's for an article about technology the Ministry of Justice is using' sounds like an atrocious lie.

Sitting in my seat in the theatre, I’d almost forget it’s there if it weren’t vibrating every 30 minutes to signify it’s taking a reading, storing it up for when I get back in range of the base station, which I've decided not to bring with me on my evening out.

At the end of the day

Back at the hotel, I decide to let the ankle tag buzz once more before removing it.

People ordered to wear these can't remove them but I've been provided with the tools to take mine off, and the device knows when I've taken it off and sends that as a signal back to SCRAM too.

Again, this is something I'd get in trouble for if I'd been ordered by a court to wear the ankle tag, but since this is for journalistic purposes I'm able to sleep and shower without it.

I've got to say being electronically tagged was a novel experience, though if I'm going to be walking around I'd rather not have a bulky ankle bracelet on if I can help it.

Certainly, the experience of walking around with it and the dissonance between stepping with a leg that wasn't tagged compared to one that was meant I could never completely get used to wearing it.

Not uncomfortable, but not ignorable.

My total results wearing the SCRAM CAM, check the blue line and you'll see it picks up where my sock has got in the way (SCRAM)

The results are in

Next morning, I head back into the Ministry of Justice to be shown just what data my day of being tagged has produced.

My first TAC reading came in at 1:10pm, and peaked at 4:47pm before dropping down as my body worked the alcohol out of its system.

It wasn't until 10:22pm that the tag started delivering zero readings again, indicating that it had been about 10 hours since I started drinking to return to that point.

Interestingly, the final reading of the day showed the figure ticking back up slightly.

Hand on heart, dear reader, this was not me having a nightcap.

Instead it’s because the SCRAM CAM is able to pick up ambient alcohol in the air. The readings are much lower than if I’d been drinking, so SCRAM’s staff are able to tell the difference.

It's suggested to me that some of the cleaning products used to make my hotel room spick ’n span could have contained elements of alcohol and assure me they can tell the difference between someone drinking alcohol and simply being in an environment where it's in the air.

Looking back at the results it's not hard to piece together my day, SCRAM are even able to tell me when my sock slightly got in the way of the device.