ANCHORAGE — The Justice Center at the University of Alaska Anchorage has completed Phase II of the Police Alcohol-Related Services Study (PASS).
The project as a whole examines the intersection of two prominent social forces in Alaska: policing, and alcohol consumption by the public. The first phase of the project, completed in summer 2004, used observational data to assemble a description of the nature and prevalence of the alcohol-related workload of Anchorage police officers: who, what, where, when, how often?
Phase II used a questionnaire to explore police perceptions of the impact of alcohol consumption in the community on their workloads. It also examined officer perceptions of alcohol abuse as a community social issue and officer attitudes toward the handling of alcohol-related incidents.
Brad Myrstol and Robert Langworthy of the Justice Center conducted the study in conjunction with the Anchorage Police Department. Myrstol will further examine the PASS data in his forthcoming doctoral dissertation. The full Justice Center report is available on the Center website at http://justice.uaa.alaska.edu.
