After a collaborative effort between Oxford Police Department (OPD) and Miami University Police (MUPD) that began in January, the departments have increased their efforts to curb underage drinking and other illegal alcohol-related activities.
One initiative, set to begin this weekend and run through the end of the academic year, is the stationing of a surveillance patrol on the border between Indiana and Ohio. There will be general surveillance on U.S. Route 27 and any alternative routes.
The patrol will begin monitoring the practice among the student population of buying alcohol in Indiana and transporting it across the state border.
OPD Sgt. Jim Squance said there is a problem of Miami students crossing the state border to Indiana to purchase beer kegs and Everclear alcohol. This is known as alcohol interdiction, which is the process of transporting the alcohol across state lines.
Squance said it is illegal to transport anything but a small personal amount of alcohol across state lines.
The OPD patrol will confiscate all excess alcohol and will impound the subject's car, which will end up being very costly for the owner, according to Squance.
In another effort to limit the danger of excess drinking and increase communication between the departments, OPD and MU plan to combine foot patrol forces and have a "party car," where an OPD officer teams up with an MUPD officer to patrol. According to MUPD Lt. Andrew Powers, the party car will patrol on weekends when it is determined to be necessary by both police agencies.
OPD made 12 arrests for liquor violations between Friday, March 23 and Sunday, March 25 - 10 of those involving Miami University students - while MUPD made just two liquor violation arrests on campus and uptown during the same time period.
According to Powers, the weekend was nothing out of the ordinary for his department.
Both Squance and Powers described the weekend as typical to previous years in Oxford in regards to students' increase in drinking.
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Squance attributed not only the temperate weather conditions to the numerous arrests, but also the joint police effort to control alcohol abuse the remaining weeks of school between OPD and MUPD.
According to Squance, this effort began in January because it made more sense to combine forces and cover the city of Oxford better.
"This was the beginning of a very proactive enforcement strategy through the rest of the year," Squance said.
According to Squance, OPD increased the number of foot patrol officers located uptown, along with several unmarked police cruisers patrolling the area.
Squance said that the exact number of cruisers and foot patrol officers always varies and that they gauge it on available officers combined with what is needed uptown.
Squance also said that dispatch calls to the station were low and these patrolling officers generated most arrests, which is typical for this time of year.
Miami sophomore Matt Hagerty and brother of the Phi Gamma Delta fraternity said he will be more aware of underage drinking when parties are held at the fraternity house, which is located on High Street and Campus Avenue.
"Now that I know that there will be more police patrolling uptown, we will be more cautious about who comes into the house and be wary of underage drinking," Hagerty said. "It's good to know that police are doing their best to ensure our safety."
Squance also mentioned other initiatives by OPD to continue to curb underage drinking and alcohol abuse, including cops-in-shops, compliance checks, and alcohol interdiction.
According to Squance, cops-in-shops is a procedure where a police officer is routinely stationed in a liquor vendor in Oxford to ensure that customers are properly carded and that IDs are valid. He also explained compliance checks refer to when OPD hires underage subjects to attempt to buy alcohol from convenience and liquor stores in the city. Squance said that every store monitored passed compliance checks last time OPD performed them a few weeks ago.
Despite the surge in arrests between Green Beer Day and this past weekend for the station, OPD's Lt. Daniel Umbstead said that he didn't view this trend of alcohol violations as an overly disastrous problem at Miami as a whole, but that the students who were arrested were putting themselves in danger by being so intoxicated.
"You don't see that many people that drunk that often unless you go uptown," Umbstead said. "The atmosphere of drinking today has shifted to drinking at house parties that eventually leads to more drinking at the bars. That combination can lead to some pretty scary stuff."
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