By: Mark Vest | West Bloomfield Beacon | Published August 8, 2024
WEST BLOOMFIELD — According to a recent report, Michigan has some troubling statistics.
Bridge Michigan reported that drunk-driving arrests have dropped 28% in the state since 2014, while fatal alcohol and drug-related crashes have risen 40%.
In 67 of Michigan’s 83 counties, including Oakland, drunk-driving arrests have declined, which mirrors a national trend, according to the report.
The rise in crashes is being attributed to fewer police officers and less traffic enforcement, which is leading to more dangerous driving behavior, the report states.
“There’s just less traffic enforcement,” Jonathan Adkins, who is the CEO of the Governors Highway Safety Association, a Washington, D.C.-based nonprofit that represents state highway offices, stated in the report.
With a decline in the number of police officers patrolling for drunk drivers, there’s “greater willingness to drive dangerously,” according to Adkins. “They don’t think they’re going to be caught.”
From 2014-2023, drunk-driving arrests were down 20% in Oakland County, 15% in Macomb County, 16% in Wayne County and 22% in Kent County, according to annual state drunk-driving audits, Bridge Michigan reported.
Ron Wiles, who is the deputy director of the Michigan Association of Chiefs of Police, reported that the number of police officers in the state has declined from 19,262 in 2014 to 18,879 last year.
A negative perception of police work, due to incidents such as when George Floyd was killed by a police officer in Minnesota in 2020, have led to what Wiles described as a “hiring crisis” in law enforcement.
West Bloomfield Police Department Deputy Chief Dale Young recently discussed some of the details that came out in the report.
Although drunk-driving arrests were reported to be on the decline in some areas, Young shared some statistics that tell a different story in West Bloomfield.
There were 57 such arrests in 2022, 62 last year, and as of Aug. 1, there were 56 so far this year in the township, he said.
“While I can’t speak to why the article is mentioning that the trend is declining, at least in West Bloomfield it appears that it’s actually gone up,” Young said. “I think that it’s a testament to the men and women that we have working here. … I’m biased towards the men and women we have here working as police officers. They are working tirelessly to make sure that the health, safety and welfare of the public is taken care of each and every day.”
Despite the stats that Young cited, like other law enforcement agencies, the number of police officers employed by the West Bloomfield Police Department is not as robust as it could be.
He said that, although the Police Department is budgeted for 82 police officers, there are currently 74 sworn officers.
“So, currently, we’re down eight officers,” Young said.
From Young’s perspective, the reason for the decline in police officers is a complex issue.
He pointed out that some new hires don’t make it through the field-training program. There are also instances when officers retire, take positions at other departments, or leave law enforcement altogether.
Although Young acknowledged that the negative publicity directed toward law enforcement could be a reason for the decline, he said that it is hard to point to any one thing.
“The problem is that the reasons are usually multi-faceted, and they’re going to be different depending on where you are doing your policing at,” Young said. “So it’s hard to paint broadly across the nation (and) come up with a simplified reason as to why something is the way that it is because of how many variations of policing there are around the country.”
Young has observed a big change in the public’s interest level in choosing law enforcement as a profession.
“Where I see maybe the biggest change is the fact that when we run hiring ads, and it’s not just us, this is like across the country – this is all anecdotal – is that it seems that not as many people at all are trying to apply to be a police officer,” he said. “When I first started as a police officer there was at least 100, maybe more, applicants that I was testing with. And then some of the guys that were police officers even before me, it could (have) been 200 people or more that were trying to … apply to be a police officer. … The trend as of late seems to be when we run these hirings, we’ll get less than 10 applicants, sometimes into the single digits.”
Although Young did not want to disclose how many officers are typically on road patrol for strategic purposes, from his perspective, there is ample coverage in West Bloomfield, which he said is approximately 36 miles.
“The number of officers that are working road patrol at any given time — we are confident that it is sufficient at the moment,” Young said.
As for a decline in the number of police officers, Young is not necessarily expecting that is an issue that will remain.
“I’m very hopeful that we’ll see that bounce back,” he said. “I don’t think that this is going to be the trend for life. I just think this is the trend right now.”