DWI Enforcement – Thought Experiment
September 13, 2009
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Posted by Michael S. Langston
I heard about a recent sobriety checkpoint in my area and what seemed to me a ridiculous use of resources compared to the payoff. This being quite some time ago, I almost lost the story, but thanks to Google Cache… here it is:
St. Charles police Detective Derek Piasecki reported this morning that a DWI checkpoint this past weekend resulted in 29 arrests. The checkpoint stopped a total of 1,797 drivers at Highway 94 and Portwest Drive. Of those, 920 were westbound, and 877 were eastbound.
Here’s a breakdown of the arrests:
* 25 for driving while intoxicated
* 3 for driving with a revoked license
* 1 for failure to comply
A total of 23 officers from the St. Charles and St. Peters police departments and the St. Charles County Sheriff’s Department worked overtime between 10 p.m. and 3 a.m.
Maybe it’s just me, as from the websites I’ve viewed people seem to be not only ok with this, but actually wanting more of it.
Looking from just the numbers however, you have 23 officers working 5 hours @ at least time 1/2. This equates (23*5) to 110 man hours or (23*7.5) or 172.5 hours of paid time to arrest 29 people while stopping 1768 other people.
This equates to (110/29) approximately 3.8 man hours per offense, with only 25 actually being arrested for the offense the checkpoint was supposed to stop.
Not only is this an incredibly inefficient use of resources, but to me, seems to be overkill. 98% of the people that were stopped had no other offense than driving in the area the police officers were targeting.
Additionally, this particular stop was announced before hand, making the actual offenders not only stupid for drinking and driving, but also clueless and uninformed.
Of course some can argue that it is worth it to help push down the scourge that is drinking and driving. Statistics are hard to come by because the only ones compiling them are groups with interests of conflict, but taking their numbers – which includes any fatal accident where alcohol was involved (even if the drunk was passed out on the shoulder of the road and was run over) – about 45 people die daily from drunk drivers.
Maybe for some this makes up for the stunning inefficiencies, for me, I’m not so sure and therein lies the question:
If you have to stop 1787 people to find the 25 you are looking for – is that considered a success?
Categories: Critical Thinking, Economics, Legislation
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Tags: Cost/Benefit Analysis, DWI check points, Government Efficiency, Justice System, Policing, Thought Experiment
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Obviously a calculation of the cost effectiveness of any police action must take into account the value of the change in incentives as a result of the deterent effect.
But more to the main point: people get really ticked off when other people endanger them, not as a result of the inevitable tradeoffs of life, but rather as a result of inexcusably irresponsible behavior. At that point they are willing to spend a seemingly irrational amount just to rectify the injustice.
I agree with the basic premise that maybe things such as this can act as a deterrent, but to what end?
It’s not that this tradeoff directly isn’t worth it, but is at what point to continuous tradeoffs mean nothing?
Shoes & shampoo @ the airport? 4 million cameras such as in the UK?
I don’t intend to say where the line is drawn as that’s more of a societal decision, but it seems so long as real crimes exist, using 23 officers for such minor offense which MIGHT cause externalities is a waste of time.
Assuming of course things like rape, murder, burglary, and other direct crimes are going on.