Related: Search a database of DUI arrests in Michigan

Across Michigan, drunken-driving enforcement is as uneven as the state’s rolling landscape.

Nowhere is that more apparent than in its iconic Big Ten towns.

In East Lansing, more drunken drivers are arrested than almost anywhere else in the state. Ann Arbor ranks nearly last, an MLive Media Group investigation found.

The difference is staggering. One East Lansing officer arrested more drunken motorists last year than all 117 officers in Ann Arbor.

The disparity is not unusual. In towns big and small, urban and rural, the level of arrests depends on where the intoxicated motorist is driving.

Last year alone:

• Urban communities tended to arrest the least drunken drivers, as more serious crimes demanded their attention.

• The highest arrest rates were in some of the smallest communities. Grand Blanc Township’s 40 officers arrested more than four times as many drunken drivers as nearby Flint’s 112-person force. Utica’s 13 officers arrested about three times as many.

• Overall, arrest rates are plummeting as manpower cuts gouge road patrols. One in six officers statewide has been eliminated since 2001.

The cuts equal the disappearance of every single Michigan State Police trooper – twice. Or the combined forces of the state’s largest cities, Detroit and Grand Rapids.

Half of those more than 3,500 officers have been lost in just the past two and a half years.

“Here’s the thing so frustrating to police chiefs. If a person is going to be killed in the state of Michigan, quite likely it is going to be on the road as opposed to in a crime,” said Bob Stevenson, executive director of the Michigan Association of Police Chiefs.

But backed-up 911 calls must take precedent.

“If a person is weaving or borderline, sometimes the officer can’t take that enforcement action because they just have more serious issues,” he said.

Still, not all disparities are due to urban, rural, or manpower differences, MLive’s investigation found.

Simply put, drunken-driving enforcement is a higher priority in some cities.

“For whatever reason, police leaders in those departments have made a decision to focus on that,” said Patrick Barone, whose Birmingham-based law firm specializes exclusively in drunken-driving defense.

“It’s all because of (officers’) training, which goes back to the management. They’re being trained to know what to look for.”

But Barone, president of the Michigan Association of OWI Attorneys, said he was unaware of the large differences in East Lansing and Ann Arbor.



"I would not have guessed that," he said, wondering how one officer could out-arrest a large department.

The Disappearing DUI

An MLive investigation into what's happening on our roads.

• Story summaries.

• Full coverage: All the stories in one place.

• Local reports: Ann Arbor, Bay City, Detroit, Flint, Grand Rapids, Jackson, Kalamazoo, Muskegon, Saginaw.

Monday:

• Uneven enforcement statewide. See arrests where you live.

• One officer, 111 DUI arrests

• Regions with most, least arrests

• Top and bottom departments

Tuesday

• Why some departments are falling behind.

• A life changed in an instant

Wednesday

• Are drivers getting drunker?

• The 100 drunkest drivers

• Live chat with two officers

Thursday

• Drugged driving: The new battleground

Friday

• How campus police compare

• Readers react



A tale of two cities

MLive reporters analyzed information from a state police database recording Breathalyzer and blood-test results in more than 275,000 drunken-driving arrests from 2006 through last year.

The analysis ranked more than 500 agencies, from more than a thousand officers to just one full-timer, based on arrests per officer.

The news organization also determined which of Michigan’s more than 100 district and municipal courts had the most new cases compared to their driving-age populations.

The months-long effort paints a portrait of enforcement that ranges from aggressive to almost negligible.

East Lansing Police Officer Travis Bove arrested 111 motorists for drinking and driving last year. Individually, that’s more than 400 other Michigan police and sheriff’s departments – 83 of them with more than 20 full-time officers.

At East Lansing’s Big 10 rival 65 miles down the road, the situation couldn’t be more different.

Last year for example:

• East Lansing ranked eighth among all agencies studied in arrests-per-officer; Ann Arbor ranked 471st.

• Of the 50-largest city police departments, East Lansing ranked No. 1; Ann Arbor was 47th – just ahead of Flint, Detroit, and Algonac’s departments.

• East Lansing police made 620 total arrests, second only to the state’s two largest cities and the entire Michigan State Police. Ann Arbor police nabbed 101.

• East Lansing arrests were up 35 percent since 2006. Ann Arbor’s fell by half. At the same time, alcohol-related crashes fell 45 percent in East Lansing. They were up 13 percent in Ann Arbor.

The huge disparity exists even though Ann Arbor had twice as many officers last year, 117 to 54. It also has more than twice as many residents.

The totals do not include additional arrests by campus police at Michigan State University and the University of Michigan, though the trend there was similar. MSU police arrested three times as many drunken drivers as Michigan’s.

Ann Arbor Deputy Police Chief Gregory Bazick said he could not explain the differences, or why his department ranks so low overall.

“One of the things to caution against is using crime statistics as a comparison of the effectiveness of a police department from jurisdiction to jurisdiction,” he said.

Some agencies emphasize beat patrols and other deployment models, he said. The level of public transit could be a factor, he added. And manpower cuts forced the city to drop directed patrols for drunken drivers, he said.

“Does it surprise me?” Bazick said of East Lansing. “That’s wonderful for them. That’s fantastic.”

Ann Arbor District Judge Joseph Burke -- whose court consequently ranked the lowest in the state last year in drunken-driving cases per capita -- had a different reaction.

“It sounds like - I don’t want to use the word incredible - but it would surprise me if one officer was able to out-arrest an entire department,” Burke said.

East Lansing Police Captain Jeff Murphy is not surprised at his department’s ranking.

“I’ve worked here 25 years and I guess I’m not surprised at all,” he said. “Probably for the last 25 years we’ve been near the top.”

Murphy said Police Chief Juli Liebler made drunken-driving enforcement an even greater priority when she became acting chief in 2010 and soon won the top job. MLive’s investigation bears that out. Arrests jumped nearly 40 percent.

“Our midnight shift consists of 15 officers and that’s quite a bit smaller than other departments,” Murphy said. “Obviously those officers work very, very hard.”

Big cities and small towns

One need look no further than the state’s most-populous city and county to see how drunken-driving enforcement can vary.

Few communities have lower arrests rates than Detroit and the Wayne County Sheriff’s Department.

Due to Detroit’s sheer size, police there arrested more drunken drivers than any single department but the Michigan State Police, 855.

But per-officer, the city’s 2,804-member force ranked lower than 500 other agencies – catching just one drunken driver for every three officers, the entire year.

Tiny Schoolcraft Village in Kalamazoo County, with three officers, averaged about 26 each – 80 total.

That’s more than the entire Wayne County Sheriff’s Department, which was lowest in MLive’s rankings of arrests-per-officer, 518th out of 518 studied.

Its 776 officers arrested just 42 drunken-driving suspects – less than one arrest for every 18 officers.That's an 83 percent reduction since 2006.

After initially saying she would comment after checking arrest data, departmental press director Paula Bridges did not respond to repeated follow-up requests over several weeks.

Varying enforcement can also be seen in departments within close proximity.

The Allegan County Sheriff’s Department out-arrested neighboring Kalamazoo County’s department - 355 to 194 - despite having 100 fewer officers.

The same can be true in small departments.

Spring Lake-Ferrysburg's nine officers in Ottawa County had five times the arrests, 81, as the similarly sized Whitehall department to the north.

And in Schoolcraft, population 1,500, the 80 arrests by it three officers propelled the town to No. 1 in the state for all agencies in arrests-per-officer. Arrests there have tripled since 2006.

By contrast, the three officers in the Lake Michigan community of Frankfort, with 1,300 year-round residents, arrested seven.

Schoolcraft’s increase coincides with the hiring of Police Officer Matt Britton in 2005.

“He’s pretty good at spotting those signs that lead you to believe a person can be intoxicated,” Schoolcraft Police Chief Bryan Campbell said, noting Britton accounted for 72 of the 80 arrests.

Campbell noted U.S. 131 cuts through the heart of the village, funneling perhaps more motorists than in some other areas. He also said Britton works Friday and Saturday nights by choice.

“We put (drunken-driving enforcement) as a pretty high priority, but I think the credit really goes not to anything I’m doing, but Officer Britton. He has really excelled in this area.”

Heavy traffic also helped boost the Utica Police Department to No. 3 in arrests per officer statewide.

“We have M-59 that runs right through the center of our community and it’s an eight- lane highway and we put a lot of traffic through," said Chief David Faber, noting there also is a proliferation of “nightspots” stretching both east and west.

The department’s 13 officers made 195 arrests – two officers accounted for more than 120. But with five fewer officers, the impact is being felt. Arrests are down nearly 40 percent since 2006.

"I know we're down, I can see it in the court funds that come in," Faber said.

Still, enforcement priorities or manpower cuts alone may not be the only answer to varying levels of arrests, experts say.

Declining drunken-driving crashes indicate there are fewer intoxicated drivers.

Awareness campaigns may be having an impact. So might the economy, if more people are drinking at home as opposed to bars and restaurants.

“Typically things like this are not because of a single factor,” said Ray Bingham, a research professor with the University of Michigan’s Transportation Research Institute.

“There are always multiple contributing issues.”

-- Email statewide projects coordinator John Barnes at jbarnes1@mlive.com or follow him on Twitter.