The sober truth

When police respond to complaints of raucous house parties and discover throngs of teenagers around a keg, they have several options. They can shut down the party and give the kids a stern warning. They can take the partygoers who appear to have been drinking to the station, call their parents, and notify their schools Monday morning. Or they can arrest everyone, even those who haven't had a drop to drink.

Police are increasingly going for that third option.

Interviews with police chiefs, school officials, defense attorneys, and teenagers suggest that, these days, to be underage at a party where alcohol is present is to be vulnerable to punishment.

"I think more departments are handling it that way," said Walpole Police Chief Richard Stillman. "The courts have consistently upheld that interpretation" of the possession law, "and it sends a strong message that underage drinking won't be tolerated."

Last month, police arrested 50 people at a keg party in Bellingham and 20 at a party in Franklin. Most were underage.

Three towns away, in Walpole, police recently learned about a beer bash after the fact, but managed to compile a list of attendees and passed it along to school officials. As a result, dozens of high school students were suspended from athletics and extracurricular activities, drawing angry protests from parents and from students who said they did not drink and were there only to pick up friends.

Police maintained that simply attending an unsupervised underage party constituted illegal possession of alcohol, and that police would have arrested everyone there if they had arrived in time.

The debate over the proper punishment has directed new attention to the law itself.

One Walpole High School student won a court injunction against school officials, so she was able to compete in a track meet. In granting the injunction, Norfolk Superior Court Judge Elizabeth Bowen Donovan drew a sharp distinction between so-called "active possession" of alcohol -- meaning partyers who are seen holding drinks or who are visibly intoxicated -- and "constructive possession" -- meaning teenagers who had obvious access to alcohol and were aware it was there.

"The police are well aware that the law recognizes two types of possession: actual and constructive," her decision stated. "The police also know that mere presence is insufficient."

But many police chiefs across the region rejected that interpretation, saying the courts have consistently ruled that merely attending an underage party with alcohol present is illegal. In a growing effort to reduce drunken driving and dangerous binge drinking, police are wielding the law more forcefully.

"Police chiefs across the country are using constructive possession to hold everyone responsible," said Foxborough Police Chief Edward O'Leary. "The hope is more teenagers will see that beer and say it's time to leave." O'Leary called youth alcohol abuse the "suburbs' biggest drug problem."

Wayne Sampson, executive director of the Massachusetts Chiefs of Police Association, said authorities are taking a more aggressive stance against underage parties in an urgent effort to curb alcohol-related car accidents.

"Departments are clearly recognizing they have to take some proactive steps against large, underage parties," he said. "Law enforcement throughout the state is very concerned about the potential aftermath."

Indeed, a survey of teenagers released last fall by Liberty Mutual and Students Against Destructive Decisions found that one in five teens drinks and drives. A national study published last year in Archives of Pediatrics & Adolescent Medicine found that almost half of teenagers who began drinking alcohol before age 14 eventually became alcohol dependent.

Foxborough is holding a community forum next month in an effort to increase parental awareness of the problem.

Kate Kominsky, a Foxborough School Committee member, said tough enforcement is crucial to reducing underage drinking, which begins at younger ages and is more excessive than ever, she said.

"You have to draw a line in the sand," she said. "Kids have to learn, if there's beer there, don't show up. This is what's going to happen, and it's not worth it."

Although authorities say the trend is toward harsher punishment for all attendees at underage drinking parties, there is still a variation among towns. Whether a young, abstaining partygoer is simply scolded or arrested depends on what town the party is in.

Paul Frazier, police chief in Braintree, takes a more flexible stance. Particularly with first-time offenders, police will typically call their parents and notify their school, but will not arrest them.

"We don't like to put them in the court system if we don't have to," he said. "Sometimes a 17-year -old kid makes a mistake, and we'd rather help them than punish them."

And Sampson, who until this year was police chief in Shrewsbury, said he instructed his officers not to punish teenagers at parties and now advises chiefs to use discretion. During his tenure, his department placed all teenagers who had been drinking in protective custody until their parents arrived and notified their school. Officers did not tell the schools about students who had not been drinking, he said.

Elliot Savitz, a Dedham defense lawyer who represents teenagers charged with drinking, said his primary goal is having such charges dismissed, because "once it's on your record, it's on your record forever."

Students would be unwise, he said, to claim innocence on the basis that they were not drinking at the party. "The fact of the matter is, underage kids shouldn't be at these parties to begin with."

Stephen Wallace, national chairman and chief executive officer of Marlborough-based SADD Inc., said the group's surveys indicate that students want to know the rules and consequences of underage drinking. "I don't think we're doing young people any favor," he said, "by not making these things clear."

Peter Schworm can be reached at schworm@globe.com.

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