Late last week, I assembled some data about the trends in party disturbances in Lincoln. We peaked at over 1,800 complaints from the public a few years ago. Aside from the impact of such disturbances on the neighborhoods where they occur, it represents a practical problem for us, too. It is a large workload, a minimum of two officers must be dispatched to each of these complaints, and the alcohol-fueled problems exacerbate matters.
Here’s the data I put together. It shows large increases in enforcement activity (tickets for MIP and for Maintaining a Disorderly House), and a significant decrease in party disturbance complaints from the public.
You might notice, though, that the declining number of party complaints actually starts in 2005. That’s about the time that our five patrol teams started working more assertively with landlords and property managers. This strategy and its results has been a topic of a few past posts on the Chief’s Corner. I am convinced that working with landlords has been an important contributing factor to the decline. If I am correct, we would expect to see not only a decline in complaints, but specifically a reduction in the number of repeat complaints: back to the same address a second, third, or eighth time. Here’s what those data look like (for single houses—I couldn’t do it easily for apartments):
I sent the following email last Friday to the five captains who command our patrol teams:“Good work! See the attachment. I needed to put these data together today for an award nomination we are going to submit. I suspected that the overall decrease in party disturbance complaints might be related to a decrease in repeats to the same address. I had no idea that it would be this dramatic.
Your increased efforts at holding landlords and property owners feet-to-the-fire, and getting them engaged in resolving some of the chronic addresses certainly appear to be paying off. This would represent a healthy percentage of the 600 annual CFS drop in these disturbance complaints since 2005. It represents a huge workload reduction when you consider that at least two officers had to be dispatched to each--not to even mention the improvement in neighborhood livability. How many Internal Affairs complaints, assaults, rapes, officer injuries, and so forth would emerge from 600 wild party calls? By the way, so for this year, we've dispatched officers to repeat locations on house party disturbances only 8 times. 8 ! ”
23 comments:
Hmph...a few thoughts on the decline. I do think that it has been the work of officers out in the neighborhoods who are taking care of these parties. While this is not a glamorous part of the job, I think see that they do have a positive impact in neighborhoods. I do have a couple gee whix questions/thougts...
1st, if you have a house of hard partying students who are attending college but take partying more seriously, will they not more than likely fail out of college removing them from the area and/or buckle down and study more. Those two changes would mean that there may be less partying.
2nd, what does the data look like even earlier in the 90's and such prior to similar type task groups?
I know the North Bottoms are historically known for their parties as well as a near by apartment complex. But this was just a little food for thought.
The only other side note is this. Do you believe that there is a shift coming on with the new gerenation who have been pounded on the consequences of binge drinking since Junior High?
6:29-
1. "Good work" is a compliment to the Team, not the individual. None of us accomplishes anything without the effort of a team--including our support staff. Obviously, patrol officers and field supervisors are at the point of the spear.
2. Don't have it on my laptop, so I'd need to have my IT staff run a special report for me on incident code 12311. I suspect it would be rising in excess of population growth until 1998, then leveling off somewhat until 2005.
3. The North Bottoms isn't quite the party central it used to be (although there are still plenty). Cheap duplexes on the fringe have become quite a problem for us with chronic disturbances.
4. The next generation of drinkers: Hard to say. I certainly hope so. The forces of alcohol marketing and popular culture are incredibly strong. The national data so far shows huge binge drinking rates, although in Lincoln, it has fallen (at least among UNL students, for whom we have research data.) I'd say the jury is out on that question.
This graph shows why I'm cutting back on my hours for a while.
Hmph. Not surprisingly, my crack IT staff appears to have read my previous comment, and produced the very data I wondered about, before I could even ask!
1988 2,197
1989 2,347
1990 2,526
1991 2,265
1992 2,335
1993 1,917
1994 1,586
1995 1,464
1996 1,581
1997 1,591
1998 1,442
1999 1,465
2000 1,633
2001 1,687
2002 1,695
2003 1,720
2004 1,806
ARRRRG!!!! -
I'm in my morning staff meeting, with a projector set up for a training session I'm doing later this morning. During a lull, I'm checking my email, and opened your link. Major ROFL event ensued. We've decided to give you an unlimited pass on the cheesy posts, just to enjoy the occasional gem like this.
I have to agree with the chief, Arrrg. This was one of your best (though it is rivaled by the recent pirate hat).
As for the topic, I also feel the effort to reduce wild party problems has been hugely successful. I know from experience, being both a landlord (just one duplex) and from living 3 houses down from a duplex that probably had 8 or more student-aged kids living in it at a time. Hardly a week went by without two or three huge parties (dozens if not hundreds of people). (Not my duplex, but the one three houses down.) We haven't had a party there for over a year, and I think it is rented out to some little old ladies now. I'm pretty sure pressure on the landlord caused that change.
Thanks LPD
To May 15, 6:29 am
Your first comment would be true IF UNL was difficult or required attendance.
It is very possible to pull a 3.0 GPA and never attend class - leaving plenty of time to disrupt the neighborhood.
Binge drinking is alive and well - if not more so than 10 years ago.
Alcohol.
One of God's greatest gifts when used properly.
One of the Devil's biggest tools when abused.
Gun Nut
For the 2008 maintaining a disorderly house citations, how many were to a rental residents, and how many to an owner/landlord?
Chief:
I regularly read on-line the Lawrence, Kan., newspaper and noticed KU is implementing some NU-Directions-like activities/enforcement/policies at KU following 3 alcohol-related student deaths this year. KU's Daily Kansan newspaper even mentioned Nebraska as a university where a concerted community-wide effort to rein-in alcohol has had a positive effect. I think it's the collaborative efforts of police/town and gown that have been successful. Kudos.
Arrrgh!... I tip my pirate hat to ye....
Chief:
I think that it is great that the amount of huge parties is down, as it shows that LPD might actually be doing something.
The thing that caught my eye was not the amount of parties, but the amount of MIP's that are given out.
When a young person is in college they are probably going to drink sometime throughout that year, your not going to be able to stop that no matter how much you think you can.
Congrats on the lowering of big parties I guess that is a big accomplishment, but shame on you for encouraging something and giving praise to something that is ruining lots of young peoples lives and giving them a criminal record.
The amount of drinking for young people has never decreased, and it will not. Young people are being forced to drink more at once (binging) before they go out to get the tipsy feeling instead being able to go to a party and drink for a couple hours. I wonder the statistics on amount of underage alcohol related health call in lincoln, and if it has risen or decreased in response to your stats?
When alcohol is prohibited so badly and the laws are so harmful people will look for new ways to feel good. I warn that the so called "drug" problem in Lincoln is increasing at an outrageous rate. Could young people possibly be turning to other drugs because of you and your policies that you praise your officers for?
There is always two sides to everything, but maybe think about the long term effects of what you do as a police chief. Everything isn't about YOU.
Mike-
"shame on you for encouraging something and giving praise to something that is ruining lots of young peoples lives and giving them a criminal record"Sorry, thought it was our job to enforce the law. Should the police not enforce the law because it could have some negative consequences on the person who is cited?
"The amount of drinking for young people has never decreased, and it will not. Young people are being forced to drink more at once (binging) before they go out to get the tipsy feeling instead being able to go to a party and drink for a couple hours."Actually, high risk drinking by young people has indeed decreased in Lincoln, Nebraska.
"I wonder the statistics on amount of underage alcohol related health call in Lincoln, and if it has risen or decreased in response to your stats?"I don't have any direct source for such data. I can't remember, though, the last alcohol-poisoning death in Lincoln. Take an earlier commenter's advice, Google "Daily Kansan" and search for binge drinking. The data from UNL's Omnibus survey shows a significant decline on alcohol related problems among UNL students.
"I warn that the so called "drug" problem in Lincoln is increasing at an outrageous rate. Could young people possibly be turning to other drugs because of you and your policies that you praise your officers for?"Do you really think that college age young people, fearing citations for MIP, are turning to methamphetamine and cocaine in order to avoid the long arm of LPD? I sure haven't seen any evidence of that.
"There is always two sides to everything, but maybe think about the long term effects of what you do as a police chief. Everything isn't about YOU."I couldn't agree more.
@ Mike:
Are you kidding me? You actually think a student will go to drugs that will get them a career ending felony charge because they might get a misdemeanor MIP? I'm pretty sure most first offense MIPs are given the chance for diversion which is a second chance. If that doesn't give them a wake up call then that's too bad.
The only Lincoln alcohol-poisoning death I remember offhand was back in 1980-81 or so, but there may (or may not) be others since then. It's more usual to instead pray to the porcelain god, followed by racking bouts of the wonderful dry heaves.
I thought that the "you made me do it" nature of the MIP > drugs line of thinking was ludicrous. It's like blaming being a robber on fear of a shoplifting (M) arrest, or blaming being a murder on fear of an assault (M) arrest.
The thing is there wouldn't even be this problem if young people were brought up educated about alcohol, and there was no drinking age of 21. Why is it that young people need a "wake up call" and need to stop drinking?
"Actually, high risk drinking by young people has indeed decreased in Lincoln, Nebraska." Tom Casady
If that's what helps you sleep at night lol
Chief, how about the college age kids whose out of town parents have bought a house for their children so their children don't pay rent? Any repercussions? We have two such locations in our neighborhood,one across the street, one next door. Any thoughts? Could calling the parents at 0200 when the party is going strong help?
Drugs? Speaking of drugs, this story really set off my Acme Drug-dealer Detector. Nothing taken (or maybe nothing they wanted to report, anyway), not even pocket cash. This sort of thing makes a person wonder if the victims had any history of drug arrests, but maybe I'm just cynical.
3:15
Yes, calling Ma & Pa helps a lot. I've done it several times, personally.
8:07
Ya think?
;)
Yes, I do think! Same thing with a HIR where someone steals an XBOX at gunpoint, and nothing else. I have a hard time taking that at face value. They're serialized, thus hard to pawn without a bite-back on your fingerprint, and if they really wanted to rip one, it's safer to do a burglary for one. Safer directly, because if the resident isn't there, they can't shoot the crook, and safer in the long run, because no one is there to ID them or call 911.
With very rare exception, almost all HIRs just fail the sniff test. The crook would be able to LFA a lot more in pure cash from purses and pocketbooks from unlocked cars with far less risk of catching a bullet.
Chief:
I was wondering if you had any statistics on the statement made by Mike about turning to other drugs over alcohol? Do the stats indeed show this correlation, is there an increase in drug use overall especially amongst our young people in the city?
I checked out the UNL police website and found this interesting chart, but was just wondering the City police and your point of view on this topic?
http://police.unl.edu/crimeblotterstatistics/index.shtml
1:06
I don't see any correlation based on the data in that chart. My alcohol offenses are increasing way more than drug offenses, but I can't be certain whether this is a function of more enforcement effort, or more prevalence. I suspect it's more enforcement. The number of drug cases in Lincoln is pretty stable for the past 15 years. I'll put that on my list for potential future topics.
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