City Of Austin DWI Enforcement Team
Creating a DWI Unit
Distinguishing Features
Creating a special-purpose unit within a large law enforcement agency can be difficult and time-consuming. Political and institutional barriers and the inertia of traditional approaches can defeat even the best of intentions. The Austin approach is distinguished by an innovative policy intended to ensure that new officers are skilled in all aspects of DWI enforcement. This description of the process by which the Austin Police Department planned, implemented, and now is perfecting, a dedicated DWI Unit provides useful advice to the managers of law enforcement agencies who are contemplating similar initiatives.
Setting
The City of Austin is located on the banks of the Colorado River at the eastern edge of the Texas Hill Country, at approximately the geographic center of the State. San Antonio is to the south, Dallas and Fort Worth are to the north, and Houston is to the east. The City of Austin encompasses 238 square miles and includes portions of Travis and Williams Counties; two of the seven Highland Lakes are located within the city limits. Austin is home to more than 674,000 residents, with approximately one million people living in the Austin metropolitan area. Austin is the site of the main campus of the University of Texas, with more than 50,000 students and 21,000 faculty and staff. In addition to serving as the political capital of the State, Austin is recognized as the intellectual, cultural and entertainment center of the region, and home to a diverse music community with a tradition of live performances and active nightlife at the many bars, restaurants, and music clubs in the city.
Background / Planning Process
Prior to 1998, all traffic enforcement by the Austin Police Department (APD) was conducted by general patrol officers, but only when they were not busy responding to calls for service. Concerned about increasing numbers of alcohol-involved crashes in the city, the chief ordered development of an operations plan in January 1998 that led immediately to the formation of a DWI Task Force. The primary goal of the task force was to reduce the number of alcohol-related fatalities in 1998 by 15 percent from the previous year’s total. The principal method would be for task force officers to focus their patrol effort almost exclusively on DWI enforcement and to assist nonspecialist patrol officers by relieving them of the DWI processing and arrest procedures. A schedule was established that assigned officers to the task force from their normal duties in the various divisions, with division commanders determining the individual assignments.
Special enforcement by the DWI Task Force was conducted daily from 10 a.m. to 4 a.m. hours, with two teams of two officers deployed on Sundays through Wednesdays and four two-officer teams on Thursdays through Saturdays. Saturday deployments were augmented by five officers from the department’s DWI Selective Enforcement Program (STEP); the STEP officers were not required to operate in pairs. The numbers of officers and hours of operation varied slightly during the initial seven-month special enforcement program.
Task force officers focused on the enforcement of impaired driving laws, but also were encouraged to make enforcement stops for the full range of traffic offenses. The officers were expected to process their own DWI arrests and to relieve general patrol officers of the processing tasks by either driving to the scene of the arrest or arranging to meet the patrol officers at the police station. Patrol officers completed the written supplement to the incident report, which provided a description of the probable cause for the originating enforcement stop. The patrol officers also were responsible for administering the tests necessary for a DWI arrest before handing off the process to a task force officer. DWI Task Force officers then completed the incident reports, affidavits, and booking sheets for the patrol officers’ arrests. Task force officers also completed nightly activity reports to which they attached copies of their dispatch sheets. A supervising lieutenant analyzed the reports to calculate the time required to process arrests.
The DWI Task Force operations familiarized many Austin PD officers with DWI assessment and arrest procedures. As a consequence of this exposure, many general patrol officers developed the skills and confidence necessary to make and process their own DWI arrests, without assistance from the task force’s DWI specialists. The combination of formal and on-the-job training resulted in general patrol officers being responsible for handling 75 percent of the Austin Police Department’s DWI arrests.
A special DWI Enforcement Unit was formed in September 1998 as a permanent replacement for the DWI Task Force and operates under the direction of the Traffic Administration Section of the Austin Police Department. The purpose of the new unit was (and remains) to increase the levels of effort and professionalism of DWI enforcement, to reduce the incidence of alcohol-involved crashes, and to send a clear message to motorists that impaired driving is not tolerated in Austin. The DWI Enforcement Unit was composed initially of eight specially trained officers and one sergeant.
Special Enforcement Methods
The DWI Enforcement Unit continues the practice of frequent, sustained, highly visible, impaired driving patrols that was established by the task force during its seven months of operation in 1998. The Unit devotes the first two days of each week to conducting what is called an “Impact Initiative,” during which all members of the DWI Unit deploy to the same APD Area Command to search for and arrest DWI violators, and to deter others from driving while impaired by their high-visibility enforcement. The officers of the DWI Unit deploy citywide during the remainder of the week when not conducting an Impact Initiative for a specific Area Command. The special unit’s vehicles are equipped with window-mounted video cameras and the words “DWI Enforcement” are conspicuously displayed to elevate public awareness of the special enforcement effort.
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Distinguishing Features
Creating a special-purpose unit within a large law enforcement agency can be difficult and time-consuming. Political and institutional barriers and the inertia of traditional approaches can defeat even the best of intentions. The Austin approach is distinguished by an innovative policy intended to ensure that new officers are skilled in all aspects of DWI enforcement. This description of the process by which the Austin Police Department planned, implemented, and now is perfecting, a dedicated DWI Unit provides useful advice to the managers of law enforcement agencies who are contemplating similar initiatives.
Setting
The City of Austin is located on the banks of the Colorado River at the eastern edge of the Texas Hill Country, at approximately the geographic center of the State. San Antonio is to the south, Dallas and Fort Worth are to the north, and Houston is to the east. The City of Austin encompasses 238 square miles and includes portions of Travis and Williams Counties; two of the seven Highland Lakes are located within the city limits. Austin is home to more than 674,000 residents, with approximately one million people living in the Austin metropolitan area. Austin is the site of the main campus of the University of Texas, with more than 50,000 students and 21,000 faculty and staff. In addition to serving as the political capital of the State, Austin is recognized as the intellectual, cultural and entertainment center of the region, and home to a diverse music community with a tradition of live performances and active nightlife at the many bars, restaurants, and music clubs in the city.
Background / Planning Process
Prior to 1998, all traffic enforcement by the Austin Police Department (APD) was conducted by general patrol officers, but only when they were not busy responding to calls for service. Concerned about increasing numbers of alcohol-involved crashes in the city, the chief ordered development of an operations plan in January 1998 that led immediately to the formation of a DWI Task Force. The primary goal of the task force was to reduce the number of alcohol-related fatalities in 1998 by 15 percent from the previous year’s total. The principal method would be for task force officers to focus their patrol effort almost exclusively on DWI enforcement and to assist nonspecialist patrol officers by relieving them of the DWI processing and arrest procedures. A schedule was established that assigned officers to the task force from their normal duties in the various divisions, with division commanders determining the individual assignments.
Special enforcement by the DWI Task Force was conducted daily from 10 a.m. to 4 a.m. hours, with two teams of two officers deployed on Sundays through Wednesdays and four two-officer teams on Thursdays through Saturdays. Saturday deployments were augmented by five officers from the department’s DWI Selective Enforcement Program (STEP); the STEP officers were not required to operate in pairs. The numbers of officers and hours of operation varied slightly during the initial seven-month special enforcement program.
Task force officers focused on the enforcement of impaired driving laws, but also were encouraged to make enforcement stops for the full range of traffic offenses. The officers were expected to process their own DWI arrests and to relieve general patrol officers of the processing tasks by either driving to the scene of the arrest or arranging to meet the patrol officers at the police station. Patrol officers completed the written supplement to the incident report, which provided a description of the probable cause for the originating enforcement stop. The patrol officers also were responsible for administering the tests necessary for a DWI arrest before handing off the process to a task force officer. DWI Task Force officers then completed the incident reports, affidavits, and booking sheets for the patrol officers’ arrests. Task force officers also completed nightly activity reports to which they attached copies of their dispatch sheets. A supervising lieutenant analyzed the reports to calculate the time required to process arrests.
The DWI Task Force operations familiarized many Austin PD officers with DWI assessment and arrest procedures. As a consequence of this exposure, many general patrol officers developed the skills and confidence necessary to make and process their own DWI arrests, without assistance from the task force’s DWI specialists. The combination of formal and on-the-job training resulted in general patrol officers being responsible for handling 75 percent of the Austin Police Department’s DWI arrests.
A special DWI Enforcement Unit was formed in September 1998 as a permanent replacement for the DWI Task Force and operates under the direction of the Traffic Administration Section of the Austin Police Department. The purpose of the new unit was (and remains) to increase the levels of effort and professionalism of DWI enforcement, to reduce the incidence of alcohol-involved crashes, and to send a clear message to motorists that impaired driving is not tolerated in Austin. The DWI Enforcement Unit was composed initially of eight specially trained officers and one sergeant.
Special Enforcement Methods
The DWI Enforcement Unit continues the practice of frequent, sustained, highly visible, impaired driving patrols that was established by the task force during its seven months of operation in 1998. The Unit devotes the first two days of each week to conducting what is called an “Impact Initiative,” during which all members of the DWI Unit deploy to the same APD Area Command to search for and arrest DWI violators, and to deter others from driving while impaired by their high-visibility enforcement. The officers of the DWI Unit deploy citywide during the remainder of the week when not conducting an Impact Initiative for a specific Area Command. The special unit’s vehicles are equipped with window-mounted video cameras and the words “DWI Enforcement” are conspicuously displayed to elevate public awareness of the special enforcement effort.
Read more
posted by Wayan-Inne at
4:41 AM
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