NCJ Number
74389
Date Published
1977
Length
67 pages
Annotation
This analytic study concerns activities and impacts of the police in Kansas City, Mo., regarding enforcement of laws pertaining to drinking and driving and the Kansas City Alcohol Safety Action Project (ASAP).
Abstract
It examines the effectiveness of the Special Alcohol Safety Patrol (SASP) in increasing the number of arrests of drunk drivers. Multiple methodologies are used to examine and analyze data, including tabulation of citywide arrests for driving under the influence of alcohol, SASP performance measures, analysis of performance by day of week and time of day, analysis of blood alcohol concentration, breath test refusal rates, conviction rates, a special patrol experiment directed at arresting youthful or wealthy drunk drivers, computation of costs per arrest, analysis of videotape effectiveness, and data and observations regarding interdivisional cooperation. The study shows that arrests more than doubled as a result of ASAP. The SASP accounted directly for well over half the increase and caused the rest of the department's arrest to increase. Moreover, SASP officers had lower breath refusal rates than other officers. Overall, the basic enforcement goals of ASAP and SASP were met, although patrol experiments aimed at increasing the apprehension of younger or wealthier drunk drivers were largely unsuccessful. Recommendations for other cities wishing to reduce the drunk driving problem include formation of a special police unit backed up by an enlightened judicial system, promotion of the concept of cooperative arrests, concentration of special patrol activities in the late night and early morning hours, and special consideration to techniques of detection and apprehension of young or wealthy drunk drivers. Footnotes, tabular data, graphs, charts, and 12 references are supplied. The patrol experiment design and Kansas City crash data are appended.