Saturday, May 12, 2018

Did Texas DPS 'border surge' cause DWI enforcement reduction?

A Grits commenter suggested a fascinating and viable theory regarding the source of radical reductions in DWI arrests across Texas in recent years:
a local judge that I know who oversees a DWI Court he has opined that DWI placements are way down in his jurisdiction and that he felt there was a correlation between the redeployment of local DPS troopers to the border. He said DPS made up the majority of their local DWI arrest. It would be interesting to see if there was any actual link between the border surge and decreases in local DWI arrest.
What do we think about this?

Grits was immediately reminded of a bout of reporting in 2015 detailing how DPS coverage in the rest of the state went down when the border surge began. As R.G. Ratcliffe wrote for Texas Monthly:
The [El Paso] Times' Marty Schladen reports that DPS warning tickets have increased since 2012 by 14.5 percent in border counties, which also saw a 13.5 percent decline in fatal accidents. During the same period, warning tickets elsewhere in Texas declined by 29.3 percent, while the number of fatal accidents increased by 6 percent. 
If the number of warning tickets in non-border-surge areas of the state declined 29% from 2012 to 2015, the idea that the same trend caused a statewide decline in DWI arrests (34% reduction from 2010-2016) doesn't seem far-fetched.

Grits doesn't immediately have enough information to confirm this hypothesis, but it fits more of the data points, not to mention the timeline, than most other possible explanations.

10 comments:

Anonymous said...

Meh, no need to worry. The DPS has hired hundreds of new recruits and once this surge ends they'll more than make up for the lack of DWI's happening now.

Gritsforbreakfast said...

That's what I'm trying to figure out, 7:39. Did DWIs go down because fewer people are driving drunk, because local jurisdictions changed practices, because DPS sent hundreds of troopers to stare across the river with binoculars down in the Valley, or some other reason? We don't really know. If you're right, they could rise again quickly as new recruits come on and/or DPS redeploys.

Anonymous said...

7:39 - Please cite your claim that DPS has hired "hundreds" of new recruits. Unless you're combining all hiring over a ten-year period or so, I'm unable to locate a number higher than 97.

Thomas said...

I'm not 7:39AM, but the legislaure authorized 250 more FTE LEOs with DPS in 2015 and I believe they did the same during the 2017 legislative session as well. While not are all troopers, some may fall under other commissioned positions in DPS such as CID, Rangers, and boat crews.

It would take time to get new troopers fully trained and on their own.

Anonymous said...

https://www.kiiitv.com/article/news/local/dps-looking-to-hire-hundreds-of-state-troopers/334072367

Anonymous said...

There were 134 just from a single class: http://www.kxan.com/news/local/austin/dps-graduates-largest-trooper-class-in-more-than-16-years_20180227104418546/994717572

Anonymous said...

Amazing how a single state agency can manipulate itself into millions of dollars to waste walking around in the weeds. What’s their new scare tactic going to be? They’ve beaten the terrorism horse to death. Part II: immigration enforcement? DPS really should get back to their original purpose.

Anonymous said...

Think the immigration stance was more from the elected officials (governor, Lt governor, state senators, etc) which used DPS.

john said...

It's a good example, where judges and other gov jackals only want more revenue.

But troops of all kinds needed to be on the border, YOUR WHOLE LIVES---because the greedy corrupted-absolutely FEDS (CONgress) have refused to do their job to defend the border from infinite illegal aliens. Just like the U.S. Senate traitors stopped doing their Appropriations Bills.
When sick bastards are in charge (e.g., on Earth), We The Poor People can go fish.

Anonymous said...

I think the American Indians need to kick everyone out since this is actually their country. Including you John the jackass.