| Summary: | 博士 === 國立中正大學 === 犯罪防治研究所 === 106 === The Confucian Analects put forth that “Lead through policies, discipline through punishments, people may be restrained but without a sense of shame." In recent years, as the public demands severe punishment for drunk drivers, law enforcement officials have also worked to prevent police officers from drunk driving to maintain the credibility of law enforcement. However, current policies mainly focus on increasing the severity of penalties through various regulations to deter police officers from drinking and driving. Nonetheless, the initial deterrent effect waned quickly and officers attempt to avoid punishment with tricks such as hit-and-runs, abandoning a car and hiding, and refusing to take a blood alcohol test. Therefore, punishment is not a panacea, and we should seek alternative means to deterrence.
To investigate the factors contributing to police officers’ drunk driving, data was collected from a large police department, located in a municipality with various zoning developments and complex social environment. Based on internal data, there were 242 cases involving officers' excessive drinking or drunk-driving behaviors from 2007 to 2015. The current study follows a rational choice model and examines the explanatory power of factors that belong to the following three dimensions: personal demographic characteristics, organizational factors, and situational factors. In addition to a frequency analysis and chi-square test, logistic regression was also used to assess the effects of the above factors in predicting police officers’ drunk-driving behavior.
In-depth interviews were also conducted with eight police officers, among which four of them had driven after drinking and the other four had never committed drunk-driving in the past (despite their frequent drinking habits) to understand their decision-making processes. Interviews focused on elucidating their thought processes and rationale behind their respective decisions regarding whether or not to drive after drinking. In addition, six scholars, experts, and police management personnel were invited to a panel to discuss the results from the secondary data analysis and interview results. Based on the available qualitative and quantitative data, they also provided insights on possible preventive measures for future development and policy recommendations.
This study found that police officers’ drunk-driving behavior could be explained by the rational choice theory. More explicitly, the choice to drink and drive was often based on previous experience, risk calculations, and the mentality that they could get away with the law. The logistic regression model based on the rational choice framework had a reasonably well model fit. In addition to a high blood alcohol concentration, there were other factors such as marital status, breach records, complexity of the police station they worked at, year-end performance evaluation, and on leave time were determined to be statistically significant in predicting officers' likelihood of engaging in drunk-driving behavior. Across all three dimensions, the situational factors had the most significant impact.
Although current regulations based on deterrence that have been implemented by police stations are generally effective, deterrence must shock the hearts of all colleagues to achieve the general prevention. Toward this end, perpetrators may be handled by their own department based on individual conditions to achieve the best special prevention effect. In addition, policies that reinforcing abstention rather than punishing the violation might have a better impact on some officers' subsequent behaviors. Alternatively, prevention strategies that rely on informal social control mechanism, or diverse educational activities emphasizing morality could also help police officers further exercise self-control. Finally, people-oriented prevention strategies have to be complemented with situational prevention tactics in order to effectively prevent the DUI of police officers.
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