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The purpose of this paper is to review the evidence of alcohol use disorders within the different stages of the criminal justice system in the UK. Furthermore it reviewed the worldwide evidence of alcohol brief interventions in the various stages of the criminal justice system.

A rapid systematic review of publications was conducted from the year 2000 to 2014 regarding the prevalence of alcohol use disorders in the various stages of the criminal justice system. The second part of the work was a rapid review of effectiveness studies of interventions for alcohol brief interventions. Studies were included if they had a comparison group. Worldwide evidence was included that consisted of up to three hours of face-to-face brief intervention either in one session or numerous sessions.

This review found that 64-88 per cent of adults in the police custody setting; 95 per cent in the magistrate court setting; 53-69 per cent in the probation setting and 5,913-863 per cent in the prison system and 64 per cent of young people in the criminal justice system in the UK scored positive for an alcohol use disorder. There is very little evidence of effectiveness of brief interventions in the various stages of the criminal justice system mainly due to the lack of follow-up data.

Brief alcohol interventions have a large and robust evidence base for reducing alcohol use in risky drinkers, particularly in primary care settings. However, there is little evidence of effect upon drinking levels in criminal justice settings. Whilst the approach shows promise with some effects being shown on alcohol-related harm as well as with young people in the USA, more robust research is needed to ascertain effectiveness of alcohol brief interventions in this setting.

This paper provides evidence of alcohol use disorders in the different stages of the criminal justice system in the UK using a validated tool as well as reviewing the worldwide evidence for short ( < three hours) alcohol brief intervention in this setting.

CEOs’ (chief executive officer) term of office may explain discretionary accruals as a result of opportunistic behavior arising during certain periods of the term of office. Therefore, CEOs, in their early years of office, have incentives to report results that meet market expectations. In turn, CEOs in their senior year may be motivated to use discretionary accruals to gain private benefits. In this scenario, corporate governance mechanisms play an important role in monitoring relationships. Hence, the purpose of this study is to verify the influence of monitoring mechanisms on the relationship between CEOs’ term of office and discretionary accruals.

Descriptive statistics, multiple cross-sectional regression to estimate the accruals and regression of panel data to test the hypotheses were used. The sample comprised 195 companies listed on BM&FBovespa.

The results indicated that CEOs’ long term of office has a negative impact on the level of discretionary accruals, and thus, Brazilian CEOs with a longer term of office tend to establish a certain reputation in the stock market. On the other hand, it is concluded that CEOs’ intentions, in the first years of term, are positively related to the use of accruals and that the monitoring mechanisms can minimize these CEOs’ opportunistic practices.

The results broaden the literature on corporate governance, pointing that different systems of variable remuneration may influence CEOs’ willingness to manage results in their last year of term.