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Story:
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IMPACT PROFILE
A tale of TWO TOWNS
Neighboring chiefs worlds apart in their approach to underage drinking
Hanover Police Chief Paul Hayes leaned forward in his office chair as if to wrap his entire body around the conversation. The topic was underage drinking, something he deems a high priority for local law enforcement. In his town, every kid caught with a cup of beer is arrested and charged.
“You need to get these kids in the court system so you can keep a watchful eye over them,” Hayes said. “If there’s a record, at least you know there might be a problem and that this kid could progress up the ladder of drug abuse.”
His approach to underage drinking is firm and uncompromising. But less than five miles away, in Norwell,
| “An arrest may not
always accomplish what you’re trying to accomplish. You arrest a kid who’s
under 21, you bring him into court, and what does that do? It gives him
a criminal record and it may hinder him in terms of college, job opportunities
and everything else.” – Norwell Police Chief Robert Galvin |
Police Chief Robert Galvin has a different approach.
Galvin said his officers do not make an arrest every time they come across an underage drinker. Sometimes, the chief said, law enforcement can be more effective if there’s a little leeway.
“An arrest may not always accomplish what you’re trying to accomplish,” Galvin said. “You arrest a kid who’s under 21, you bring him into court, and what does that do? It gives him a criminal record and it may hinder him in terms of college, job opportunities and everything else.”
Galvin and Hayes are neighboring police chiefs on opposite sides of an intractable debate over how to handle illegal drinking by minors.
With research consistently showing a strong connection between early alcohol abuse and illicit drug use, police enforcement of drinking laws takes on critical importance in the broader struggle against illegal substance abuse.
A study released last year by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services reported that there were 2.1 million youths in the country classified as heavy drinkers. The study said 65 percent of those heavy drinkers were also illicit drug users. Among non-drinkers, the study said, only 4 percent used drugs.
On the South Shore, the level of enforcement depends almost entirely on what town your standing in.
Some officials say the conflicting policies undermine efforts by parents, police and schools to keep teenagers away from alcohol.
“You don’t want to send mixed signals,” said Michael Sullivan, who was the Plymouth County district attorney for six years before becoming U.S. Attorney in Boston last fall. “Kids read the newspapers as well. They are pretty mobile today and they know when one community is a lot easier with regards to minors in possession of alcohol versus another community.”
In Hanover and Norwell, both police chiefs say there are drugs in their schools and hard drugs such as heroin and cocaine in their communities. They agree that underage drinking is often where the trouble starts, but how to stop it before drugs become involved is another question.
Frustration edged into Hayes’ voice as he sat in his office in the Hanover Police Station and talked about inconsistencies in local law enforcement.
It’s been this way for all of his 27 years as a police officer, he said. On the South Shore and across Massachusetts, local police departments make their own determinations about how tightly the laws, especially underage drinking laws, should be enforced.
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GREG DERR/The Patriot Ledger Norwell Police Chief Robert Galvin does not believe in arresting every underage drinker when a parent can take action instead of the courts. |
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LISA BUL/The Patriot Ledger Hanover Police Chief Paul Hayes has a strict zero-tolerance policy on underage drinking. |
And even when arrests are made, the contrasting approaches continue in court. Quincy District Court operates a diversion program that allows young offenders to avoid having criminal records by doing community service. But in Hingham District Court, where youths from Hanover and Norwell are sent, there is no such program.
“There are so many inconsistencies from town to town, state to state, agency to agency,” said Hayes. “Not everyone is on the same page. ... You can only be flexible to a point.”
And beyond that point, Hayes said, is an unpredictable void that can lead young people to more serious substance abuse and possibly addiction.
In Hanover, as in any small suburban town full of commuters and quiet subdivisions, there’s a perception among the citizenry that drugs are not a problem. But Hayes said police see a wide array of illegal drugs here, and young people are sometimes the ones caught selling and using them.
“We’ve had a DXM arrest at South Shore Voc-Tech,” Hayes said, referring to a chemical found in cough
| “If you don’t draw
the line, you’re being reactive; you’re waiting for something to happen
so you can deal with it. I don’t want us to wait until someone gets killed
in a car accident.’’ – Hanover Police Chief Paul Hayes |
suppressants that’s used illegally as an hallucinogen. “And we’ve had overdoses on ecstasy and the date rape drug GHB. No one died, but we’ve had two overdoses. We’ve also had thefts of OxyContin.”
While underage drinking does not always lead to illegal drug use, Hayes said police should not put themselves in the position of making assumptions about when that danger exists.
“It’s a matter of being proactive,” he said. “If you don’t draw the line, you’re being reactive; you’re waiting for something to happen so you can deal with it. I don’t want us to wait until someone gets killed in a car accident.’’
Hayes knows he has detractors in law enforcement circles, people who say his rigid policies spoil opportunities to intervene with rehabilitation. But he insists there is no other effective way to approach illegal substance abuse, and he wants the state to set a standard.
“That hasn’t happened in my 27 years” as a police officer, he said. “There are too many fiefdoms, too much infighting.”
At the Norwell police station, just a short drive from Hanover along quiet, shady streets, Chief Galvin couldn’t disagree more.
Galvin became the town’s police chief two years ago after spending 28 years with the Milton police. He said law enforcement needs to be dynamic in dealing with substance abuse, particularly in the area of young people and alcohol.
“As a country, we still have not come to terms with alcohol use and abuse,” he said. “... We have to rethink the way we do things. We ought to look more into how we treat people who are dependent on substances and look at treatment in a different view.”
Galvin said his department is no more tolerant of underage drinking than Hanover’s. But patrol officers in Norwell are not mandated to make arrests every time they break up a house party.
In most cases, Galvin said, officers contact parents and schedule a meeting to discuss whether further intervention is needed.
“And if there’s a second instance, the arrest would be made,” Galvin said. “But what concerns us is that a lot of times parents say, ‘But it’s only booze.’”
In the past year, Norwell police have made more than 20 drug arrests, including several for cocaine and one in connection with an $8,000 shipment of anabolic steroids from Shanghai, China.
“We have a tremendous array of controlled substances used by people in town, like every other city and town in the country,” Galvin said.
He said police must have discretion in dealing with young people to prevent their substance abuse from escalating beyond alcohol. He said a blanket policy would only serve to limit officers’ ability to respond to different circumstances.
“I suppose it would be easier for me as a chief if a law came down that said, ‘This is how you should react to these situations,’” Galvin said. “But should we be looking for an easier way of doing our jobs, or should we be attempting to solve the problem? I think we should be attempting to solve the problem.”
“We have to educate parents and kids,” he added. “A lot of times, parents may not encourage it, but they may not discourage it, either.”
NUMBERS
9 million
Drug-related emergency room episodes in the U.S. in one year
20%
Percentage of people 18 to 20 who say they used an illicit drug in the past month
59%
Percentage of adult males in U.S. who test positive for drugs at time of arrest