Associations between alcohol-related priorities and actions among local law enforcement agencies

Local law enforcement agencies operate with finite or limited resources and yet are faced with a wide set of enforcement responsibilities. Prioritization is likely, although the extent and nature of this process is not clear. We examine the extent to which three facets of alcohol enforcement (underage drinking, over-service of alcohol, and drink-driving) are prioritized by local enforcement agencies and if prioritization is associated with specific types of enforcement actions. We surveyed 1082 local law enforcement agencies (from a random sample of 1632; 66% response rate) from across the U.S. There was wide variability in the reported priority levels for underage drinking, over-service of alcohol, and drinking and driving enforcement. Enforcing drinking and driving laws was most commonly prioritized with 46% of agencies reporting it was a "fairly high" or "very high" priority, followed by underage drinking (25%), and over-service (2.7%). The priorities were significantly positively correlated with each other, indicating that agencies that prioritized one type of alcohol enforcement were likely to prioritize the other types as well. Similarly, prioritizing any of issues was associated with increased alcohol enforcement actions for all three types of issues, but the associations were stronger for the corresponding type of priority/action (e.g., underage drinking priorities most highly associated with underage drinking enforcement actions, etc.). More results based on multivariate models will be presented, including examining the role of resources and agency/jurisdiction characteristics as possible modifiers of the association between priorities and enforcement actions. Implications for improving alcohol enforcement will be discussed.