Offenders See Inebriation From Police Point of View

San Fernando Municipal Judge Michael S. Luros had a choice. He could impose a heavy fine on the young man for alcohol-related reckless driving or he could jail him.

Instead, Luros put Steve Elman to work on the graveyard shift in a mobile police station where suspected drunk drivers are processed on the spot and released to the custody of friends or relatives. Luros also fined Elman $550, a lighter price than he might have paid.

“That was the most expensive 12-pack I ever drank,” said Elman, 21. “But I was happy not to go to jail.”

Although other judges sentence defendants convicted of misdemeanors to community service, Luros is the first to assign them to the Immediate Booking and Release System (IBARS) program.

“Just paying a fine is too simple,” Luros said. “This way, the individual has an opportunity to see what others look like who have been driving under the influence and to get a true perspective of the dangers of drinking and driving.

‘Put Something Back’

“We all pay because of drunk drivers in terms of higher taxes and insurance rates. I thought it was time they redressed their wrongs by putting something back into the community.”

Since October, Luros has assigned 10 community service workers to IBARS, where they help Los Angeles police officers file paper work, set up tables, put up lights and clean the unit’s two 30-foot buses, used for processing and holding defendants. Seven of the 10 were convicted of drunk driving or alcohol-related reckless driving. The others were convicted of various misdemeanors, such as battery.

Sentences have ranged from 75 hours in Elman’s case to 1,000 hours in the case of a man with a prior conviction who was convicted of petty theft. Community service workers put in 12-hour shifts, beginning about 6 p.m.

“They have been a tremendous help,” said Sgt. Michael L. Pattee, who heads IBARS, which received a two-year grant to combat drunk driving from the California Office of Traffic Safety in December, 1986.

Now in its second year, the mobile unit operates from 11 locations throughout Los Angeles. Five of the sites are in the San Fernando Valley because of the area’s high rate of drunk driving arrests, Pattee said.

40% of Arrests in Valley

About 40% of the city’s 25,591 drunk driving arrests were made in the Valley in 1986, the last year for which complete figures are available, said George Callandrillo, the LAPD’s traffic analyst.

Friday and Saturday night, IBARS set up shop in the parking lot of the Los Angeles County Fire Department yard on Osborne Street in Pacoima. A steady stream of drunk driving suspects--exhibiting the unsteady gaits, red faces and loud voices characteristic of the inebriated--was brought in by patrol cars. Pattee said the two-night sweep netted 96 suspected drunk drivers, most of them male.

Illuminated by the floodlights, which did nothing to heat the 43-degree air Friday night, the handcuffed suspects were offered one of three tests--blood, breath or urine--by police reserve officers.

One reserve officer, Chuck Mason, of Van Nuys, proposed the idea of sentencing defendants to Luros after observing the dearth of labor at the IBARS sites. Although volunteers have put in more than 65,000 hours since IBARS began, Pattee said he hated to ask volunteers to do “the dirty work.”

Community service workers, however, do not appear to be overworked. Elman, a business major at Pierce College, said there are plenty of slack times during the shift, and he has been permitted to watch television or do his homework.

Workers usually begin the all-night shift after a long day at work, said Mike Edwards, IBARS’ civilian jailer.

Perhaps the most difficult part of the sentence is having to observe other drunk drivers, Pattee said, and “see how stupid they looked when they were arrested.”

Gale Beck, 61, of Granada Hills was fined $750 and sentenced to 70 hours with IBARS after he was convicted of drunk driving for the second time. He recently completed his community service and plans to volunteer for the program. Beck said he has not had anything to drink since Oct. 1, shortly before he began serving his sentence with IBARS.

“I saw one guy on my first night in a wheelchair and that really floored me, “ Beck said. “He was drunk. It kind of made you think twice about having anything to drink.”

But Luros and the IBARS personnel are not naive enough to believe that the program is the solution to the drunk driving problem, although, so far, there have been no repeat offenders.

“For the individual who is not the long-term problem drinker, getting sentenced to IBARS may show them what’s down the road for them and keep them from going down the inevitable path,” Luros said.

The sentence has made a difference in his life, Elman said. He drank ice water on New Year’s Eve, he said. And, although his IBARS experience won’t stop him from ever drinking, “I won’t drink and drive,” he said.