It is important to consider the fact that the number of drunk people will entirely change every day, as people do not stay drunk for longer than a day at a time. This is what makes the information given in Source H different to that of Source G.
Source H shows that the number of drunks arrested increased by thousands annually. However, there is one exception – between 1923 and 1925 the number of “drunks and disorderly conduct” decreased. Ignoring this exception, and assuming that the number of drunks at any one time was staying approximately the same, Source H is proving that the police were doing a successful job in enforcing Prohibition. We can see this because over time the police were arresting more and more drunks.
However, if we were to assume that the number of drunks were increasing over time, then it is impossible to say how well the police were doing, because we do not know how many people were drunk every year in comparison to how many people were getting caught. Therefore, the success rate is impossible to judge.
Focussing on the exceptional figure previously mentioned, it could be argued that the drunks were learning their lesson and therefore there were less drunks to be caught altogether, in which case Prohibition had been a success in that area. But it could also be argued that the police were slacking, and they were simply not taking as much notice of the drunks as they had done before.
It could also be pointed out that the police were slacking hugely in the area of drunk drivers, because these figures are so much lower than the others. But of course the explanation for this is most likely that there were hardly any drunk drivers to catch anyway, because there were not many cars in those days. However there is a possibility that infact there were lots of drunk drivers (as drink driving had not been a crime before Prohibition was introduced) and the police were very unsuccessful at catching them.
A final argument to summarise both sources is that if Prohibition had been successfully enforced, the number of illegal occurances would surely go down, leaving less criminals to be caught. The figures shown in both sources clearly show that this is not the case, and therefore Prohibition could hardly be called successful.
Another reason why Sources G and H are difficult to judge, besides the fact that we are not given the total amounts, is that we are not informed as to whether the figures given are cumulative or not. I have been assuming that they are not, meaning the figures show totally new amounts for each year, but if they are cumulative, then that could entirely change the extent of the success of Prohibition.
A final consideration to make for these sources is that they were produced by the police. The purpose of these statistics was therefore very likely to be to prove to the public what a good job the police were doing in enforcing Prohibition. This would suggest that, although statistics are one of the most reliable sources of evidence, in this case it is possible that they were altered for impressionable reasons (i.e. they wanted to make the public believe that the enforcement of Prohibition was succeeding whether it was or not).
In conclusion, Sources G and H cannot be “proving” the success of Prohibition. There are different arguments for both sources and we simply cannot judge the rate or extent of success without knowing the total amounts, or knowing for certain that the police didn’t alter any of the figures.
