Repeat DUI offenders need rehabilitation and treatment

Bradley P. Lunsford

Approach 2: DUI court, rehabilitation and treatment.

The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration recently released its annual Traffic Safety Assessment, revealing a dramatic 3.7 percent decrease in alcohol-impaired driving fatalities since the previous

reporting year in the United States. This reduction is owed to a number of factors, including the diligence of law enforcement and the effectiveness of our court system in appropriately sanctioning social drinkers arrested for drunk driving.

Awareness groups such as Mothers Against Drunk Driving have become increasingly innovative in promoting the message of zero tolerance for impaired drivers and the importance of designated drivers.

Unfortunately for Centre County, no such decrease in impaired drivers has been reported. To the contrary, drunken driving now represents one-third of our entire criminal case load. A disturbing trend was revealed in the assessment that is supported by local statistics: an increase among the most dangerous offenders, those whose blood-alcohol content is .15 or above and those drivers with prior drunken driving convictions.

Even though these drivers are not the most common of DUI offenders, they are by far the most dangerous. The number of fatal crashes involving impaired drivers with a prior DUI conviction is increasing in many parts of the country. As a result, there’s a clear need for a court system that specifically addresses high-risk offenders and the addiction that keeps them from changing their behavior. An appropriate counseling and treatment alternative is being implemented in Centre County that will accept its first offender by year’s end.

To date, it has been left to the traditional courts and the criminal justice system to deal with DUI cases, and it has become clear that the traditional process is not working for repeat offenders. Punishment unaccompanied by treatment and accountability is an ineffective deterrent for the repeat DUI offender. The outcome for the offender is continued dependence on alcohol; for the community, continued peril.

DUI court is a distinct court system dedicated to changing the behavior of alcohol-and drug-dependent offender arrested for driving under the influence of alcohol and drugs. The goal of this court is to protect public safety by addressing the root causes of impaired driving, alcohol and other substance abuse.

DUI courts utilize all criminal justice stakeholders (judge, prosecutors, defense attorneys, probation, law enforcement and others) coupled with alcohol or drug treatment professionals. This group of professionals makes up a DUI court team that uses a cooperative approach to systematically change offender behavior. This includes a full continuum of drug and alcohol treatment, incarceration and other corrective and rehabilitative services. Compliance with treatment and other court-mandated requirements is verified by frequent alcohol testing, close community supervision and ongoing judicial supervision in nonadversarial court review hearings.

The Centre County DUI Court will target these high-risk offenders and will offer the therapeutic treatment they require to stay clean and sober and never get back behind the wheel of a vehicle impaired. Treatment is only half the strategy. Accountability is critical and brought to bear by a specially trained judge where DUI offenders are required to meet their own obligations to society, themselves and their families.

After serving a period of incarceration, offenders are regularly tested for alcohol use, required to appear in court bi-weekly to review their progress with the judge, and will receive incentives for doing well and sanctions for not living up to their obligations.

A recent study by the Michigan Supreme Court found that offenders sentenced to traditional sanctions were 19 times more likely to be re-arrested for a DUI charge than a DUI court participant. Conversely, Blair County’s DUI court boasts a zero percent recidivism rate. Nearly 450 such courts exist nationwide. These courts, as well as other counseling and other rehabilitative alternatives, are changing the behavior of high-risk drinking drivers.

Bradley P. Lunsford is a Centre County judge.