Arrests for public drunkenness on the rise

Arrests for public drunkenness on the rise

Editor’s note: This is the second story in a series about the impact that alcohol abuse is having on Penn State and the State College area. Others in the series and statistics on the problem can be found at http://www.psu.edu/ur/topics/alcohol.html

The night may start off with happy hours, but the scene at Centre Community Hospital hours later is anything but happy.

One night of drinking too much by one person can have a lot of repercussions.

First State College Borough Police find the Penn State student passed out on a downtown sidewalk early Friday morning. The weekend of partying started on Thursday night.

Then he is taken to Centre Community Hospital. It is not unusual to have more than one local ambulance tied up on weekend nights ferrying alcohol overdose patients to the emergency room.

Physicians and nurses are focused on taking care of the ill student, and these particular patients can be difficult -- they are throwing up, belligerent and often don’t even think they should be in a hospital emergency room.

What happened to this particular 21-year-old student in mid-October was not uncommon, but it was nonetheless troubling for the hospital staff.

The drunk student ripped his shirt and medical devices off and began running through the hospital. When approached by hospital security guards, he clenched his fists and even grabbed one of the guards.

After the hospital part of the evening is taken care of then the local courts take over. In this particular case, the student is fined $634 for all the trouble he has caused police, courts, physicians, nurses and others. The Office of Judicial Affairs on campus will eventually weigh in on the case as well, and then other University resources will go toward the educational programs students like this man are assigned to attend following alcohol convictions.

Now multiply all that trouble and mayhem by the 445 cases of public drunkenness for which Penn State and State College police made arrests last year.

And despite high awareness of the ongoing alcohol problem and an aggressive range of educational programs in place supported by the University and community groups, those numbers are rising in recent years -- from 401 public drunkenness arrests by the two police departments in 2001, and 364 such arrests by the departments in 2000.

Public drunkenness on campus and in the borough appears to be a bigger problem than ever.

The biggest increase in arrests during recent years has been on campus property.

Although the number of arrests in the borough have only fluctuated slightly over the past couple years, the number of public drunkenness arrests on campus have doubled, from 87 arrests on campus for public drunkenness in 2000 to 165 such arrests by Penn State police in 2002. For a chart illustrating this, go to http://live.psu.edu/still_life/10_31_03_alcohol/index.html

“Our officers are not trying particularly hard to find and make arrests for public drunkenness,” said Tom Harmon, director of University police at Penn State. “They are just so obvious they cannot be missed. Large numbers of inebriated students move from downtown up to campus between midnight and 3 a.m., particularly on Friday, Saturday and Sunday mornings.

“Officers typically come into contact with drunken students when they are observed urinating in public, carrying stolen objects, or are simply found passed out on the sidewalk or the floor of a campus building.”

Tom King, chief of the State College Borough Police Department, said, “On a nightly basis our officers must assist persons so intoxicated they are an extreme danger to themselves. Persons are often found unconscious, staggering in the roadway, or injured from an assault or fall.

“The extent of the problem, both in number of publicly drunk persons and the degree of intoxication, is a real health and safety threat to those intoxicated as well as our community,” King said.

About a week ago at about 3:30 a.m. a man found a woman lying naked in his apartment downtown. She was drunk. Frightened local residents have many times reported finding drunks wandering their homes in the early morning hours, out of control and convinced they are in their own residence. Police have been injured in fights with drunks, pedestrians have been assaulted and property damaged.

The happy hours that began many hours earlier in bars, and in apartment and fraternity parties often don’t end so happily for a lot of people.

“We continue to be concerned about the number of students who are drinking too much,” said Vicky Triponey, vice president for student affairs at Penn State.

“This disruptive and dangerous behavior is jeopardizing our students’ potential for success within our learning community. When students drink illegally or in excess, they are not only breaking the law and violating our community standards as outlined in our Code of Conduct, but they are also risking their own health and well-being. They are also risking the safety of others within our University community and beyond.”

In addition to the increase in public drunkenness cases, State College Borough and Penn State police also both recently reported a sharp increase in drunk driving arrests during the past three years. More than 400 DUI arrests were made in the first nine months of 2003. For that story, check Penn State Live at http://live.psu.edu/story/4291