While the amount of many types of underage drinking tickets rose across Indiana at college campuses, the amount of alcohol-related car accidents with intoxicated drivers has been cut by half.
Indiana State Excise Department released an annual report in February that reflects the amount of activity and enforcement the department achieved during the calendar year of 2012.
In 2011, excise officers encountered 15 alcohol-related crashes with intoxicated minors ages 15-20 in Delaware County. Only seven instances happened in 2012.
The amount of underage drinking tickets and arrests for possessing fake identification and furnishing alcohol to minors rose. Twenty-nine people were charged for having a fake ID or telling an officer their wrong age in 2011, compared to 41 people charged in 2012. In 2011 25 people were charged for furnishing alcohol to minors or inducing to possess in Delaware County where as 81 people were charged in 2012.
Excise officer Brandon Thomas, who is in charge of Delaware County enforcement, said finding people with fake IDs in the Ball State area is a focus of his.
“Used to, you had to know somebody who knew how to make a false ID just to get one or have someone who sort of looked like you who’s 21 let you borrow their ID. But now, it has changed the game a little bit with the online purchases of false IDs,” he said.
Thomas said the rise in alcohol-related charges could be contributed to the Intensified College Enforcement, or ICE, program that ran for a large part of 2012. The program’s purpose was to reduce the amount of underage people obtaining and consuming alcohol, as well as making the communities around college campuses safer.
Thomas said he has received feedback from people in the community about the excise enforcement in Muncie.
“Every time I’m inside a grocery store or a liquor store ... somebody will usually come up to me and say what a positive impact, particularly our department, has had in the area, and that’s stuff just little like reduced noise around the campus as far as where the residential areas are, a lot less trash on people’s lawns, some of the [bad] behavior has gone down a little, they’ve said they’ve had to clean up less as far as stuff like that, disturbances late at night,” he said. “As long as we have that kind of impact, we’ll always have a focus on college areas.”
The ICE program is funded by a federal grant that was awarded to Indiana’s excise department twice in 2012. Thomas said the goals have been achieved in the past, and the grant has provided money to send more officers to college-town areas.
Thomas said he is not sure if the numbers will be as high next year, based on factors including the fact the department has not received a grant for the ICE program for 2013.
“We haven’t had a renewed grant,” he said. “I’m not sure if we are going to get a renewed grant.”
Excise officers will continue to monitor college campuses regardless of the grant. Thomas said the most activity in Muncie is in residential areas and the Village.
“We get a lot of disorderly conduct and things like that around the bars, around the residential areas and especially around the streets, particularly around the Neely Street area,” he said. “That’s usually where our highest area of activity is, especially during the move-in times [and] Halloween.”
