Thaina Acosta

Proff. Petrides
ENG 102
8/10/16
Americas Need for DUI Courts
Driving under the Influence Courts are the most effective way for the judicial system to
handle persistent drunk drivers. By participating in DUI court, offenders will have the opportunity
to be rehabilitated and return to society as productive healthy citizens. Those that are punished
through the traditional court sentencing and do not participate in DUI court, will generally offend
again and will end up being incarcerated.
Taken as a whole, quality DUI courts can significantly reduce DUI recidivism when they
are fairly and appropriately court ordered. The DUI court program has had great success in
working with offenders and getting them back on a law abiding and productive track of life. If all
states adopted such legislation, the number of persistent drunk drivers nationwide would
decrease by a lot, our jails would not be overcrowded and alcoholics would be given a second
chance to live life right, one day at a time.
The problem of driving while impaired has existed as long as society has had the
automobile. As our population has increased, streets and roadways have become more
crowded and vehicles have become more powerful. Drunk driving is the crime of driving while
impaired by alcohol. Historically, the problem has compounded through the years.
When the automobile was first introduced in America, it was not regulated in any way. At
first, cars were a curiosity for the rich and eccentric. Then, they became a new business
opportunity for anybody with the tools and materials. As cars became more common, local
governments still had not enacted laws for their use (Excessive). America drove right through
Prohibition without official automobile regulation. Speakeasies and bootlegging were very
popular and although nobody was being arrested for it, people were drinking and driving
National Center).

It wasnt until the middle of the 1930s that rules and laws for using automobiles began
popping up. Indiana began issuing driver's licenses in 1935 . There was no test and it cost
50cents. In 1939, Indiana became the first state to enact a BAC law. The Blood Alcohol Content
level to determine a drunk driver was set at a .15 or nearly twice todays .08 national legal limit
(Goodfellow). In the United States today, most anyone who is convicted of driving under the
influence of alcohol may be heavily fined and given a lengthy prison sentence. Felony or
misdemeanor charges may also be based on the BAC measurement (Court).
In 1969 the popular alcoholic Teddy Kennedy drove his car off of a bridge near Marthas
Vineyard. Kennedy managed to swim to safety, while his passenger died in his car under the
water due to being trapped. Kennedy, while suspicious waited a few hours before notifying
authorities. Public opinion was that he sobered up a bit before notifying the police. This incident
played a huge factor in changing the next few years (Goodfellow).
It was not until the late 1970s and early 1980s that public awareness about the dangers
of drinking and driving increased and lawmakers and police officers began to get tougher on
offenders. In1980,a Californian named Candy Lightner founded Mothers Against Drunk Driving,
or MADD, after her 13-year-old daughter Cari was killed by a drunk driver while walking home
from a school event (National). The driver had three previous drunk-driving convictions and was
out on bail from a hit-and-run arrest two days earlier. Lightner and MADD were instrumental in
helping to change attitudes about drunk driving and pushed for legislation that increased the
penalties for driving under the influence of alcohol (National). This set stage for Zero Tolerance
legislation passed around 2000. The argument was that if it was illegal for you to drink, than any
amount of drinking mixed with driving equaled a worse offense than the usual drunk driving.
Despite the stiff penalties and public awareness campaigns, drunk driving is still a serious
problem in the United States. In 2005, 16,885 people died in alcohol-related crashes and almost
1.4 million people were arrested for driving under the influence of alcohol (Hanna).

Standard legislative punishments have proven that they are not effective for
these persistent drunk drivers. These drivers have received the same court sanctions for each
offense; fines, alcohol classes, and jail time. As the number of DUI convictions increase per
driver, the sanctions seem to escalate in severity. The main focus of these sentences and
escalated punishments has not proven to be effective. DUI Court evolved from these persistent
drunk driving cases. When Dui offenders have been placed into traditional courtrooms without
any specialized programming to meet their particular clinical and supervisory needs, outcomes
can be considerably poorer than for DUI court programs (Marlowe).
This results in the persistent drunk driver. This is the driver who has a continued
careless attitude for drinking and driving laws. Their drinking and driving patterns prove to be
highly repetitive in nature. Recidivism for this crime is very high. Recidivism means an offender
does not reoffend within two years, post-conviction (Court). About one-third of the drunken
driving problems arrests, crashes, deaths, and injuries come from previous offenders. At any
point we share the roads with 2 million people who have three or more drunken driving
offenses (Superior Court).
In total, in 2012, adults drank too much and then drove, approximately 112 million times
that year. That is about 300,000 incidents of drinking and driving a day (Mothers Against).
Consider how many times a person may have driven drunk before they got caught; the numbers
are high. An average drunk driver has driven drunk 80 times before their first arrest (National
Highway). These statistics demonstrate that ineffective punishments do not solve the problem.
The DUI Court is a collaborative court. The DUI Court team assists every participant in
connecting them with whatever help they need. This help can also include behavioral care and
mental health counseling. People from the community, therapists and attorneys are all part of
the team. The collaborative court concept arose in the early 1990s with a program intended to
break the cycle of arrest, conviction, jail, release, and re-offenses with drug possession cases. It
started in Miami, Florida and then grew across the country. Judicial departments were eager to

try a new different way because impaired drivers were injuring and killing people on our roads
and highways (National Highway).
The goal of DUI Court is to treat the whole individual. Most participants experience
greater health, reunification or better relationships with family and friends, a true spirituality,
better financial management skills and greater success at work (Hanna). The participant must
make a commitment to change. The participant must recognize that he/she has a substance
abuse problem and demonstrate a readiness for change. The participant must have sufficient
mental and physical health to be able to complete the activities and requirements of the
program and may not be taking medications, which are inconsistent with program testing or
sobriety (Hanna). There may also be other mandatory participation requirements such as
frequent court hearings, frequent probation meetings, community support meeting (such as AA),
random drug and alcohol testing, and other civic activities. The DUI court model is a much more
effective way to rehabilitate and prevent recidivism of repeat offenders. It emphasizes
rehabilitation and changing an offenders patterns. The offenders are treated like alcoholics, not
criminals.. The concept is not soft on crime and is intended to protect public safety. The court's
reaction to the DUI arrest and conviction is treatment and supervision, not incarceration, it is a
post-conviction program (National Center). The DUI Court program is designed to get, and
keep, previous offenders sober, to give them treatment over the course of their participation and
to help them to gain an understanding of the destructive lifestyle they lived before. The longterm goal is that the participants become solidly entrenched in a new sober lifestyle (National
Center).
This is a concept that has not been tried nationwide. Many believe this would reduce
recidivism, but others disagree (Hanna). In trying to protect their communities, some states have
focused on the issue of driving. Modern day, the automobile has evolved into a necessary
component of society. A common misconception still exists that driving on our nations roads and
highways is a right. No, driving a car is not a right, its a privilege. A driver's license is not so

much permission to drive, as it is permission to use public roads. If a person is a danger to

other people on public roads, then they shouldn't be allowed on them (Marlowe). A repeat
offender's drivers license is always revoked for some amount of time because the drunk driver
has demonstrated recklessness. This still does not solve the problem of alcohol abuse. Just
because a person does not have a drivers license does not mean that they will not drive. And
when they do drive, they will end up, once again, in jail. By offering offenders a rehabilitative
option through DUI court they have the opportunity to get well rather than face further
incarceration.
The District Attorney often feels the persistent drunk driver is beyond help and should be
sentenced to a longer period of jail time. Their field of law has exposed them to punitive
consequences for criminals. They have studied the patterns of criminal punishments in our
country. These penalties always escalate in severity. But the repeat offender has been
sentenced to jail time- for their previous convictions; it did not stop them from offending again.
Another common objection to DUI court is the notion that the courts are not certified
treatment providers. The most prominent group in our society that holds this view is that of the
treatment providers themselves. Denise Vonda, a Certified Addictions Counselor in the State of
Colorado states this group often does not understand the courts full involvement. Unless they
are closely involved with the DUI Courts program they may feel as if the courts are taking the
problem out of the hands of the certified professionals (National).
These professionals may also see the DUI Court process as shaming (National
Center). This is because any failures in a persons sobriety are openly acknowledged and
punished in a court of law that is open to the general public and subject to be scrutinized by the
community. Its true that this would not occur if a person was incarcerated. But the whole point
of the DUI court being a collaborative effort comes into play here. The team is established to
guide, direct, and work together to help the offender. In addition to public defenders, district
attorneys and probation officers, a DUI court team should also include treatment providers. The

judges role in the program is to lead the team.The courts do not provide the treatment services,
they merely oversee the process. It is this team that will help the offender on the journey to
sobriety. It is this team that will help to rehabilitate offenders and keep our communities safer.

Work cited:
Court Of Appeals, People vs. Watkins, -P.3d-, 2012 WL , Colorado 310776 (Colo. App. 2012).
Excessive Drinking Kills. (2014, June 28). USA TODAY for Fort Collins Coloradoan, p. 3B.
Goodfellow, Marianne, and Catharine Kilgore. "DUI Offenders Beliefs About DUI Statutes And
DUI Law Enforcement: Implications For Deterrence." Journal Of Drug Issues 44.3 (2014): 269280. Academic Search Complete. Web. 1 Aug. 2016.
Hanna, Katherine L. "Old Laws, New Tricks: Drunk Driving And Autonomous Vehicles."
Jurimetrics: The Journal Of Law, Science & Technology 55.2 (2015): 275-289. Academic Search
Complete. Web. 1 Aug. 2016.
HIEMSTRA, CHERYL F. "Keeping Dui Implied Consent Laws Implied." Willamette Law Review
48.4 (2012): 521-543. Academic Search Complete. Web. 1 Aug. 2016.
Marlowe, D.B. (2012). The Facts on DWI Courts. Judicial Physiology, 12
Mothers Against Drunk Driving, (2014). Retrieved From MADD website:
http://www.madd.org/drunk-driving/about/
National Center for DUI Courts (2014), retrieved from web site:
http://www.dwicourts.org/learn/about-dwi-courts/-guiding-principles

National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (2014) , retrieved from web site
http://www.nhtsa.gov/people/outreach/traftech/1995/TT085.htm
Superior Court of California, County of Orange, retrieved from web
site:http://www.occourts.org/general-info/dui-court/applicants/