Wauwatosa Is Taking on Drunken Driving – and Winning

While others debate whether a large decrease in drunken driving arrests in the greater metropolitan Milwaukee suburbs is because fewer people are drinking and driving or because fewer are getting caught, a ranking Wauwatosa police officer believes enforcement efforts are working to significantly reduce violations – not just arrests.

In Wauwatosa, certainly, and probably in a number of other suburban jurisdictions, recent numbers and reports from the field suggest that Capt. Tim Sharpee is right – and if anyone should know, he would.

Sharpee is the steering committee chairman of the Southeast Wisconsin High-Visibility OWI Task Force, a joint effort by member departments to directly target drunken drivers with more officers on patrol, looking mainly for OWI suspects.

By Sharpee’s lights, there’s a strong correlation between the deployment of the Task Force, plus educational and legislative initiatives, that have served to send the driving public a message about drinking and driving – although he’s far from satisfied that we’ve conquered the problem.

The Milwaukee Patch region analyzed state arrest reports for the greater metro area and found OWI arrests down by 30 percent from 2007 through 2012. That’s not just in our 18 Patch communities but in almost 50 municipalities in a four-county area.

“We’re showing the same,” Sharpee said of Wauwatosa. “Our contacts” – drivers pulled over on probable cause for investigation – “are up, but our arrests are down.”

In Wauwatosa, the reduction in arrests was just 8 percent since 2007, hardly a statistically significant figure. Wauwatosa police arrested 160 drunken drivers in 2007 and 147 in 2012, which wouldn’t be very meaningful even if the slight decrease had been constant over the five years since 2007.

But the number in fact grew significantly from 2007’s 160 arrests to a peak of 236 in 2009 – and then fell yearly and increasingly since. That’s a 38 percent reduction from 2009 to 2012, in hard numbers a reduction of 89 arrests a year by Wauwatosa police.

For a drop like that in just three years, you’d have to think that either fewer people are drinking and driving or that officers were catching far fewer of them.

Coincidence? He thinks not

As it happens, 2009 was the year the Southeast Wisconsin Multi-Jurisdictional OWI Task Force took the field, putting many additional officers out looking specifically for drunken drivers, and Capt. Sharpee believes that accounts for the large increase in arrests that year.

As it also happens, 2009 was the year the Wisconsin Legislature passed tougher OWI laws, increasing penalties (although the state is still considered lenient compared to most others).

As the Task Force continued its deployment, another 231 OWI arrests were made in 2010. And then, as news of increasing enforcement and increasing penalties worked their way into the public consciousness, arrests fell to 184 in 2011 and 147 in 2012 in 2012, even as Task Force deployments grew.

Halfway through this year, Wauwatosa police had made OWI 85 arrests by the end of June, which would put us on track for 170 in 2013. But we’ve already passed St. Patrick’s Day, Cinco de Mayo (which fell on a weekend) and Memorial Day, typically three of the worst holidays for drinking and driving.

“I’m looking at July so far,” Sharpee said, “and I’m not seeing much for what was both a long Fourth of July weekend and the last weekend of Summerfest.”

The Task Force was out on Friday, and no arrests were made. One OWI arrest was made Saturday by an officer on regular patrol.

The OWI Task Force member departments coordinate their efforts but are autonomous in the use of their own resources. Grant funding for the efforts comes from the federal government, but each department is free to decide when and how to deploy, and also whether to use its own overtime budget to enhance OWI patrols.

Wauwatosa has been one of the most dedicated departments, using federal grants not only for powered-up OWI enforcement but also grants for speeding and seat-belt compliance enforcement to bolster Task Force deployments.

Last year, the Task Force changed its name and tactics: It is now the High-Visibility OWI Task Force, and as the name implies, member departments are doing everything they can to let drivers know they are being watched – press releases are broadcast every time there is a deployment, making it no secret.

“People know the officers are out there in force,” Sharpee said, “and they are taking note of that. We’re seeing way more taxis, taxis in front of taverns. We’re making way more contacts and seeing way more designated drivers, and we’re arresting fewer people.”

Is the message finally getting through?

A “contact,” in the context of the Task Force, is, as mentioned, is a probable-cause traffic stop in which an officer has a reason to suspect a driver could be impaired – speeding, lane deviations, etc.

“We’re seeing a mindset change,” Sharpee said. “Drivers are getting the message. Us, and teachers and the schools. We’re seeing young people who grew up with the DARE program avoiding arrest by following the precepts – take a taxi, have a designated driver, call someone for a ride – there are just alternatives out there to drinking and driving, and people are starting to use them.”

The Task Force, from Oct. 31 through April 6, put 580 additional officers on the road – “a lot of boots on the ground,” Sharpee said – and made 219 arrests throughout the member suburbs from a total of 2,831 contacts.

“That’s a pretty good number,” Sharpee said. “When you make that many stops and that few arrests, it’s looking better.

“We can’t say we’re where we want to be, because there are still people being arrested and there are still tragedies happening. We want to see when we make all those contacts and have no arrests, because people aren’t drinking and driving.

“When we do make arrests, we’re seeing more (in proportion) second-, third- and fourth-time offenders, and that’s a troubling part as well.”

But fewer arrests overall, when there is greatly increased enforcement, is a good thing, Sharpee said, and he assured Patch that there will be no relaxing and resting on laurels – focused OWI Task Force deployments will continue for the foreseeable future.

And there may also an even brighter side to obeying drinking and driving laws, if you are lucky and not running too far afoul of normal traffic rules.

“We’re issuing a lot of warnings,” Sharpee said. “Not if you’re really driving recklessly, but if we stop you for something marginal and you’re obeying the OWI law, we’ll tell you to pay attention, don’t be distracted – but you may not get a ticket.”

So, don’t give a Tosa officer a reason to ask you to get out of your car, perform a series of sobriety tests, blow into a plastic tube, get handcuffed, take a ride in the back of a squad car, get booked and cited (or worse, jailed) and all the rest of the mandatory court and education appearances and fines and public records that entail.

The life you save by not drinking and driving could be your own, that of a passenger you love, or of some stranger upon whose life might later rest your moral conscience, your freedom and your financial security.

Don’t drink and drive.