Just about a year ago, Whitewater’s former police chief authorized a raid on a drinking party; this year, almost to the day, the city’s new police chief did the same. Scores were cited a year ago; scores were cited this year.
Needless to say, last year’s raid did nothing to stop the underage drinking in a different house this October.
Unless one were to believe that in the last year no underage age residents drank from the former party until the latter party, one can reasonably conclude that there were intervening house parties during the last year, and even riskier circumventions as underage drinkers drove outside of town. How many, I cannot say; that there were none defies believability.
For a few – an unthinking or foolish constituency – these raids are an accomplishment. Yet, know this: they’ve not stopped underage drinking, and not a single proponent can even show they’ve made a statistically meaningful contribution to reducing that behavior. Whitewater’s chief has the power to act, but does not — and cannot — show persuasive progress. On the contrary, the formulaic nature of these raids suggests dumb show, not reduction in underage drinking.
All the opportunities for community awareness and education programs are lost by undertaking a dim, predictable, cookie-cutter approach like this. Once one goes down this road, leaders should not expect a closer relationship with underage residents. Nor should they expect any progress with so rote an enforcement effort.
We many be thankful for word processing as a time-saver: Except for the year and address, this year’s announcement might as well have been last year’s announcement.
That’s true for me, too. What I wrote last year about these raids is still true:
A Problem Unsolved. Whitewater’s cited, as the story correctly notes, more underage drinkers at a single time than this, previously. And yet, here’s another house party, with underage drinking. There were likely many parties between the last major house party citations (2002) and this recent one. Most were probably smaller, but add them all up, and this seemingly impressive raid looks like water on sand.
It’s odd to hear someone talk about ‘zero tolerance’ when all these efforts amount to so little behavioral change. It doesn’t matter how little one tolerates something if there’s no change in overall behavior.
There’s a mediocrity to these enforcement efforts, leaving real problems to fester beneath the headlines, and that’s not changed from last year, either.