That's what I've been asking. Thanks for the info Boss.
I've read the Indiana Statues but I can't find the appropriate pieces to cite you. Like most statues they don't read easily.
Here's a site by a Californai nonprofit group that list the significant aspects of drinking laws across the nation. They seem to be neutral in presenting information that being part of one side or the other of an issue.
41 States That Allow Underage (under 21) Alcohol Consumption - Drinking Age - ProCon.org
Indiana: Underage consumption of alcohol is prohibited with no exceptions.
I think most every state has an Alcoholic Beverage Commission type group that licenses breweries, wineriers, bars, restarurants and has inspectors or agents to handle licensing compliance. Drinking law enforcement in many states are handled by local jurisdictions. Indiana has a separate police force the Excise Police which is actually changed with maintaining morals it says so in their mission statement and in the statute. They apparently started out as revenuers. The applicable Indiana statutes were rewritten in 2008 to incoporate new Federal Law (see below).
The Indiana State Excise Police (ISEP) website
ISEP: Enforcement Efforts
lists their history, locations (throught the state), new releases of the "busts" like the Little 500 at IU, Ball St, Indiana St, etc. They apparently get around.
One of the programs they run is:
SUDS (Stop Underage Drinking & Sales)
SUDS is a federally funded program that pays officers overtime for working details where there is a high concentration of underage drinking. The primary goal of SUDS is to reduce the acquisition of alcoholic beverages by those individuals who are not legally entitled to possess them. By reducing access to alcoholic beverages through education and enforcement, the number of young individuals who will be injured or killed can be greatly reduced.
I didn't realize there was such a program. Turns out it's a Federal Law,
Sober
Truth
On
Preventing Underage Drinking, signed by Bush in
2006, sponsored by some 85 Congresspersons and Senators, was widely supported on both sides of the aisle, and had the support of numerous medical and health groups AND the alcohol industry, so I read.
While it's easy to jump on the local cops it seems when they encounter a situation with multiple underage drinkers, they contact ISEP who takes charge. I don't know if anyone outside of Indiana operates the same way but the Feds make 80 grants available annually at $50K/grant. I couldn't find a list of actual grants as to how much Indiana gets. Nor did I find out whether fines stay locally, go to the state agency, or are split.
The ISEP may be overzealous, ego trippers but they have the support of the Governor and the legislature. Underage drinkers on campuses across the state complain "persecution", "unfairl" but the Indiana legislature keeps funding them and neither they nor the Governor curtail their authority. There doesn't seem to be a rash of false arrest suits so it doesn't seem like the Indiana Judiciary is upset about the enforcement either. ISEP's been doing it this way for a couple of years from what I read.
Like it not, they're serious about underage drinking in Indiana. And they enforce it. The article, "Strike One" I linked previously notes that in du Lac, the ND student handbook, ND advises students that they can be arrested for underage drinking. Yeatman, Golic, Clausen and others were big news on campus. There may be some computer geek who missed it but the jocks all knew. There's a reason they ran like a Chinese firedrill when they learned cops were in the hood. They rolled the dice and knew the consequences they faced.
And for all the ancedotal stories about "hands off on campus" the ISEP may not raid dorms for parties not because they can't, ND doesn't have sanctuary, but because they don't know. The parties are kept in check, there's no neighbors being bothered to call a complaint in, no empties left in the neighbors yard, no loud music, fights, nor noises at 1 or 2 am in the dorms (parietals). No drunk drivers weaving down the road. But ISEP has a presence on campus at tailgate functions in recent years much to the dismay of ND tailgaters. Part of it is STOP, the federal law, part of it is the ISEP's "maintaining morals" and part of it IS ND as recently demonstrated by ND curtailing tailgating during games.
