DUI arrests plunge in Sarasota County

[News Flash]

SARASOTA COUNTY - The sheriff's office made half as many DUI arrests last year as in 2004, leading the county to one of the largest drops in Florida over the past four years.

The downturn reflects a shift of resources away from a night traffic unit that makes the bulk of DUI arrests, which are time consuming and drain overtime budgets.

There are now three night traffic deputies in that unit, and some nights none of them are on the road.

Sheriff's officials say they do not have the budget to add deputies to the night traffic unit.

But neighboring counties with the same budget stresses as Sarasota have maintained DUI enforcement, with Charlotte and Lee counties posting increases in DUI arrests over the same period.

The executive director of MADD Florida visited Sheriff Bill Balkwill to talk about Sarasota's rapid decline in drunken-driving enforcement.

"It doesn't add up," Don Murray said. "There's nothing that unique about Sarasota County that would cause those numbers to be different."

Sheriff's officials say their resources are stretched thin because the budget has not kept pace with growth, and the first priority has to be responding to emergencies and investigating major crimes.

"Anything that's proactive sometimes has to take a back seat, because when the 911 phone rings, we have to go," sheriff's spokesman Maj. Steve Burns said.

A local defense attorney says the drop in enforcement in Sarasota County is no secret.

"I certainly think there is a sense that you're a lot safer drinking and driving in Sarasota County than Charlotte County," said Sarasota attorney Tom Hudson.

Fewer eyes and arrests: The drop in DUI arrests in Sarasota County corresponds with a reduction in the number of traffic deputies who work the night shift, when most DUI arrests are made.

There were five deputies in the night shift traffic division in 2004, when the agency made 1,158 DUI arrests.

The night traffic squad dropped to two deputies through most of 2007 because Balkwill did not assign new deputies to it as others left the DUI unit.

There are now three nighttime traffic deputies, plus one on medical leave. When those deputies need to go to court hearings, daytime training sessions or work overtime to make an arrest, they must take nights off.

The night traffic unit has also lost a few of its most productive and experienced DUI deputies. Chuck Stellwagon retired, and Chip Miller was transferred to bailiff at the Venice courthouse in 2004.

Burns said the agency could not cut from anywhere else to put deputies in night traffic.

The sheriff's office now has about the same number of deputies as in 2001, Burns said. But since then, there have been 12,000 homes and 9 million square feet of commercial and industrial space permitted for construction in unincorporated Sarasota County.

The agency's budget grew from $72 million in 2003-04 to $86 million in 2007-08. But while the budget increased $14 million, the number of sworn deputies dropped from 463 to 440 because of inflation and the rising costs of salaries and benefits.

DUI arrests cost more to see through the court system, Murray said.

The arrests and paperwork take hours to complete, so an arrest right at the end of a shift means overtime.

After that, DUI defendants are more likely to fight their cases. For officers who work the night shift, coming to court to testify means more overtime.

Statewide, DUI arrests dropped 6 percent from 2004 to 2007, and are on pace to drop another 6 percent in 2008.

Murray said that drop is in part caused by shrinking budgets.

"DUI officers cost more money than a regular officer, because they have more court time," Murray said. "They take them off DUI because they don't have that many dollars to pay overtime."

Defense attorneys who specialize in traffic and DUI defense say deputies who are not focusing on DUI enforcement are also more likely to tell drivers to call a taxi or a friend to drive them home, instead of going through with the arrest, Sarasota attorney David Haenel said.

"DUIs are somewhat complex and take a lot of time, and they don't want to be tied up for three or four hours," Haenel said.

Some counties arrest more: Not every jurisdiction is cutting back on DUI enforcement. Pasco and Hernando counties both increased DUI arrests by 25 percent and 23 percent respectively between 2004 and 2007, the last year of full statistics.

Lee County increased arrests by 14 percent over the same time period. Charlotte County has added personnel as part of a long-range plan, and DUI arrests in that county have increased 3 percent since 2004.

Over the same time period, Sarasota County's arrests dropped 39 percent.

The Sarasota Sheriff's Office, which accounted for three out of every four DUI arrests in 2004, made 1158 arrests in 2004 and 579 arrests in 2007, a 50 percent drop.

The city police departments in the county made 32 percent fewer DUI arrests as well, while the Florida Highway Patrol increased its arrests in the county by 12 percent.

There is no indication that there are fewer people driving drunk. The population has continued to increase in the county, and the number of alcohol-related crashes countywide has remained the same.

DUI arrests in Manatee County dropped 9 percent since 2004, a drop fueled by a 25 percent decrease in drunk driving arrests from the sheriff's office.

The city police agencies in Manatee County increased their arrests by 44 percent and FHP increased its arrests there by 15 percent.

Source

Im not gonna say we cant use our current budget more wisely because we can, but in no way should our number of deputies be decreasing. Our budget should be 7-10 million dollars higher then it is with the size/population of this county.

The problem is the county commission does not consider the SSO a priority. They would rather spend on parks,scat,buy sensetive lands,waste money on studies for the Red Sox who used us to get a better deal from Ft. Myers, etc. All good thngs but not priorities.

Has anyone held the county accountable for going over on the budget for the attempt to bring the Red sox here?????? Its to bad no one ran against some of these commissioners.

We used to have five guys on nights and two on evenings (7245,7246). The evenings guys would work FRI/ SAT nights to catch DUIs. 7105 (retired) and 7146 (you know who they are) would pull out the BAT mobile to do tests. Then we got tons of money from the county to add six traffic positions for aggresive driving enforcement and the Sheriff sat on the money for years wihout filling them until right before his last election campaign. Where did all those positions go? (crash cars that aren't anymore?) What budget did all that money get transfered to? We cut out the TAC unit which who fed alot of DUIs to the traffic unit. No wonder the numbers are down. And the Clerk is upset that ticket numbers are down so they raise the fines? Wow! Here's an idea: Lower the fines and add more bodies, and more tickets and DUI arrests will happen.

The local defense attorneys want us to do more DUIs? Funny. Stop making it so hard and we will.

Although I don't agree with them sometimes, I'm glad we have good defense attorneys out there, it keeps us doing our jobs right. I'd have to say that I've learned quite a bit from going to depos and going to courts with these attorneys, as they will know much more than us. Our numbers are pretty steady, given the amount of people who are doing the DUIs, the paper just chooses to report the worst numbers.

The local defense attorneys want us to do more DUIs? Funny. Stop making it so hard and we will.

http://www.heraldtribune.com/article..._law_practices

they want more business, thats why...

I don't know where they got their stats from CCSO. We dont even HAVE a DUI unit. We have a small traffic unit that rotates between the 3 districts. Very few of them, if any, actually look for DUI's.

I dont know too many regular Deputies that will even take a DUI. We take more drunks home in my District that were known as the real Star Cab.