ALCOHOL ARRESTS RISE AT UMASS

AMHERST -- The police chief for this University of Massachusetts campus
yesterday said tougher enforcement is partly responsible for a fivefold
increase in the number of drinking arrests.

And Chief John Luippold Jr. cautioned that it is not clear if the rising
number of arrests actually reflect any increase in illegal behavior.

Alcohol arrests on campus increased from 14 in 1996 to 74 in 1997,
according to Luippold. There were 37 such arrests in 1995 and 79 in 1994.

Luippold said campus police have been begun using portable devices to
measure alcohol on the breath and are collaborating more with authorities
in nearby communities.

However, he said the higher number of arrests in 1997 also stems in part
from normal yearly variations in difficult-to-quantify factors, like the
weather.

A 1990 federal mandate requires campus police to collect and publicly
distribute the arrest figures.

Luippold said the 1997 rise does not seem to stem from a campus crackdown
on alcohol violations. Many of the arrests were made in the spring, before
some alcohol-related incidents at this campus and others last fall prompted
the crackdown.

Most of the 1997 arrests were for under-age possession or transport of
alcoholic drinks. Twenty-one is the legal drinking age in Massachusetts.

Despite the large increase in number of arrests, dormitory drinking
violations rose only slightly from 1995 to 1997.

In the 1995-96 school year, there were 1,386 reported dormitory violations,
according to Assistant Dean of Students Paul Vasconcellos. That number rose
to 1,456 -- a 5 percent increase -- the next school year. Last year's
numbers are still being tallied, but are projected to remain about the same.

"We're in a position to observe people on every floor," Vasconcellos said,
referring to the campus staff of residence assistants. "We've had some
tragedies on campus, but I don't think there's been a dramatic change in
the residence hall numbers."

However, he added that the dormitory numbers are still "pretty high" and
justify concern.

The Chronicle of Higher Education recently cited a 10 percent rise in
alcohol arrests on campuses nationally in 1996. It quoted campus police and
college officials as saying the rise reflected stronger enforcement, not
more drinking.

Myra Kodner, a staffer at the watchdog group Security on Campus, attributed
the higher number of arrests reported nationally to the government mandate
requiring that campus police keep closer tabs on the trend.

"You don't necessarily know that it's an increase," she said. "They (now)
have to report things that were hidden."

University of Massachusetts administrators have been trying to draw more
campus and public attention to drinking abuses as the school year begins.
They have vowed to act more swiftly to make students who break drinking
rules undergo education or counseling. They sent letters to all 18,000
undergraduates, advising them of the rules going into effect this fall.

At the Amherst campus last fall, a student fell through a greenhouse roof
in what authorities described as an alcohol-related death. A student at the
Massachusetts Institute of Technology died of alcohol poisoning after
drinking at a fraternity.