Criminal Justice

Description

In Chapter 8, Detection and Enforcement Action Against the Impaired Driver, we learned that at any given time the number of impaired drivers on the road outnumbers the number of police officers on duty at any given time.    The police officers on duty have other important duties to perform.  This lessens the amount of attention and effort they can devote to detecting and apprehending impaired drivers. Some officers – for a variety of reasons – are not personally motivated to engage in dedicated, aggressive, DUI enforcement. In Chapter 9, Field Sobriety Testing for Suspected Impaired Drivers, we learned that as the severity and awareness of the impaired driving problem grew, so did the realization that stricter DUI laws and better methods of detection were need. Many officers are not highly skilled or properly trained in DUI detection. The explosion of drug use, both legal and illegal, added an additional dimension to the problem.  It became imperative that better field investigation techniques and training be made available to law enforcement to combat this serious problem and this resulted in the Drug Recognition Expert (DRE) Program which has certified approximately 6,000 officers in 41 states. In two or three paragraphs, answer the following questions: Our text states not all officers are personally motivated to engage in aggressive DUI enforcement.  What do you think are some of the reasons that might explain this? Do you feel that all uniformed patrol and traffic officers should receive advanced training in performing field sobriety tests during DUI investigations? Why or why not?  What about the DRE Program?  Why or why not?