"Surprisingly Police Captain McClusky did not drink. `I must be the only Irishman who don't take the booze,' he said. `I seen too many good people get in trouble because of the booze.'" That line from Mario Puzo's famous novel The Godfather came to mind when considering the incident of a Taipei police officer who is charged with using excessive force against a teenager during a traffic stop ("Cop caught hitting teen," Feb. 7, page 2). The officer involved appeared to be drunk, as was the officer at the Liuchangli Police Station where the teen went to file a complaint.
This incident raises a pair of issues that are often interrelated; police drinking and excessive use of force. Problem drinking among cops often goes hand in hand with the use of excessive force. A drunk cop does not have the judgment to respond with a correct level of force to any given situation. People who are drunk are notorious for their quickness to fight, quickness to take offense; bar rooms and brawls are oftentimes synonymous.
The issue of police drinking is really two issues. The first is how to deal with police drinking on duty or coming onto duty drunk. The second is how to deal with police who are full blown alcoholics. In the first situation the officer may or may not be suffering from the medical condition of alcoholism. They may just have a cavalier attitude toward drinking and toward being a cop; thinking that it is cool or okay to show up drunk or drink on duty. I have had several personal experiences of seeing Taipei police officers drink on duty and I don't just mean one sip at a social function. I mean several glasses of hard liquor while sitting in the back of a bar where they probably shouldn't have been.
The solution to that type of behavior is a clear "zero tolerance" policy backed up with appropriate administrative sanctions. By appropriate administrative sanctions I do not mean the usual slap on the wrist demerit; I mean firing the cop.
Alcoholism is a separate problem, a medical problem. It is of course often difficult to determine if an officer is just showing poor professional judgment by sitting in the back of a bar, in uniform and on duty, drinking an XO, or if they are an alcoholic. That determination must be made by a trained mental health professional upon consideration of a range of factors.
The first step in dealing with police alcoholism is admitting it exists. Hal Brown, an American expert in police alcoholism said, "I would venture to guess that more police officers die early because of alcoholism than any other single preventable cause. Their deaths are occasionally dramatic in car accidents, but more typically they come from the side effects of alcoholism, from the toll it takes on the body, mind, spirit and family." Although that comment was made in reference to police in the US, it may well be equally true of local police.
The reason for this high incidence of alcoholism is not hard to fathom. Brown goes on to say; "Booze is, after all, a quick, if dangerous and ultimately ineffective, way to cope with stress. And police certainly have enough of that." This daily stress that is part of police work all over the world is compounded for the alcoholic officer by the fact that most police agencies have no established way to get help for alcoholism without the officers putting their careers at risk.
The National Police Administration ought to take steps to handle drinking among the police force. Such steps would start with a realistic assessment of how widespread problem drinking and or alcoholism is in the force. Once that has been determined then a program should be put in place that allows police officers to seek assistance for their drinking problems.
I realize that the two solutions I have mentioned seem to be at odds; on the one hand a zero-tolerance policy leading to firing, on the other hand a policy of providing medical assistance to officers in trouble with liquor. Which of the two approaches ought to be followed hinges on one thing: is the police officer an alcoholic and is the officer willing to admit that fact and seek help. If the answer to that is no, then the cop should be fired. If the answer to that is "yes," then another solution can be sought.
The bottom line remains the same. A police officer with a badge and a loaded gun should not have liquor in his system. It is that simple and the police administration should ensure that such things do not occur.
Brian Kennedy is an attorney who writes and teaches on criminal justice and human rights issues.
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