Alcohol-related crimes on campus and the surrounding community have steadily decreased over the past six years, according to UW-Madison's PACE Project, whose members held a meeting Tuesday at Memorial Union to present their findings.
Aaron Brower, the vice provost for teaching and learning, said the research was done using a geographical information system. The GIS data showed how crime moves around the city hour by hour. The four crimes specified in the GIS data included liquor violations, noise complaints, vandalism and the most severe assaults and batteries.
In comparison to the data from 2003, the amount of these crimes, with the exception of liquor violations, has gone down. Brower said he thought this occurred because police were able to ticket liquor violations early, before they turned into a more severe crime, such as assault.
According to the project's findings, the binge-drinking rate on campus has stayed relatively the same from 1993 to 2009. A male who has five or more drinks within two weeks is considered a binge drinker, and a female is considered to be a binge drinker if she has four or more drinks within two weeks.
The data also showed an increase in detoxification admissions beginning in 2004. Brower said that this could have happened because the university sent advisory messages to students to call for help if needed. The average blood alcohol content of students brought to a detoxification center ranged from 0.2 to 0.3, which is three to four times the legal limit of 0.08.
Other research done compared the liquor license density in 2003 to 2008. In 2003, the downtown area had 168 alcohol outlets and 52 bars.
The high-density areas were mainly around the Capitol, but there was an increase of outlets around University Avenue shown in the 2008 data. This year's data showed an increase of alcohol outlets, but a decrease in the amount of bars.
