Russell O'Reilly
tribdem@tribdem.com
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Punxsutawney police Officer Jeff Winefield tells young adults: “Once you pull the trigger, you can’t call it back.”
It’s not a lesson in gun safety. Rather, Winefield was talking about the click of a computer mouse.
“People are open with the photos they post on their Facebook and MySpace pages,” he said. “Many people post photos of themselves engaging in activities they should not be doing – for example, underage drinking.”
Today, Winefield and about 17 other law enforcement officer trainers contracted by the Pennsylvania Liquor Control Board are attending a seminar in State College to learn how to train their police forces to use social networking websites to gain leverage in preventing underage drinking.
“By examining the Facebook page of a minor arrested or cited for underage drinking, we might be able to detect and prevent out-of-control parties, identify where the parties are and who supplies minors with alcohol,” Winefield said.
The seminar will be led by Capt. Corey MacDonald, a police officer from Portsmouth, N.H., nationally known for his work in combating underage drinking.
“We are hoping the officers who attend the conference will leave with a better understanding of how to navigate social-networking sites to better protect high-school and college-aged people under 21 who are on the fence about engaging in dangerous activities,” PLCB spokeswoman Stacey Witalec said.
“We’ve gone into schools to do assemblies, and they are effective to the kids who want to pay attention,” she said, “but now we are meeting them on their turf – cyberspace.”
The PLCB’s aim is not only to reach minors on the Internet, but also to nab those 21 and older who provide alcohol to those who are underage.
“We need to educate the older friends of minors why they should not enable underage drinking,” Winefield said. “Where there’s underage drinking, there are usually people drinking to get drunk. And that results in problems such as drunken driving, sexual assault and criminal mischief.”
Throughout his decade and a half of police work, Winefield said he has received many calls from people who have found strangers passed out on their porches after a night of heavy drinking.
The PLCB urges law enforcement to reduce underage drinking by having a constructive, communicative presence in cyberspace – not by patrolling it.
“Officers are talking to kids in a way that neither group thought was possible,” Witalec said.
“This is a way for law-enforcement officers to listen to what youth have to say,” she said.
Witalec said minors often feel as if nobody wants to hear about their problems.
“While underage drinking is a huge problem, if cyberspace communication with law enforcement can change the mind of one minor and that person talks to his or her peers, then we would have reached kids who may not have known how dangerous underage drinking can be,” Witalec said.
