About the High-Risk Impaired Driver Project
Responsibility.org has collaborated with key partners in the fields of traffic safety, criminal justice, and supervision and treatment to eliminate impaired driving through best practices with a focus on high-risk impaired drivers. The DUI system is complex and contains many gaps and addressing those issues requires practitioners, policymakers, and the public to better understand those gaps and how the system operates and reforms that are needed to effectively reduce recidivism and fatalities.
What happens during a DUI investigation and arrest? How can drug and alcohol impairment be proven? How does a DUI case move through the court process? What is most effective to prevent repeat DUI? How are offender treatment needs identified and applied? How often are impaired drivers supervised and how is that accomplished? The purpose of this project is to answer these questions and many more while highlighting much-needed changes to the system and best practices in use by states.
This project provides an overview of each phase of the DUI system: Detection/arrest, pre-trial practices, screening and assessment, the court process/sentencing, supervision, and treatment. We identify common challenges as well as system improvements and how to implement them. The project is a roadmap to fill system gaps and eliminate impaired driving especially among high-risk impaired drivers.
Additional resources include state and federal legislative checklists and program recommendations, data considerations to facilitate research and analyses, and interactive videos and visuals for the media and public to further general knowledge . Promising practices from around the country highlight evidence-based countermeasures for states to replicate. Lastly, this website provides access to Responsibility.org and partner impaired driving courses, guides, policymaker checklists, and other educational resources.
This project is part of a larger collaboration with the Governors Highway Safety Association (GHSA). In December 2019, GHSA released a report entitled High-Risk Impaired Drivers: Combating a Critical Threat, that calls for a holistic approach when dealing with these offenders. While the project addresses systemic issues, the challenges identified, and solutions proposed are particularly important for dealing with high-risk impaired drivers who place a greater burden on the system as they require intensive monitoring and frequently have extensive treatment needs. The hope is that by improving the system, high-risk offenders can be identified the first time that they are arrested to change their behavior and eliminate impaired driving.
Acknowledgements
An expert panel was developed for this project representing each facet of the impaired driving system. The panel focused on how to reform the system to produce better outcomes. Through this process, the roadmaps that offer guidance on implementing critical system reforms were produced and are now available to interested practitioners and decision-makers.
Responsibility.org expresses sincere gratitude and thanks to the experts who offered their valuable insights and shared their experiences. Their contributions made this project possible and have led to the development of resources that we strongly believe will not only improve the way the criminal justice system does business but ultimately, change and save lives.
Please note that the following list reflects the titles and organizations of working group members at the time of their participation in this project in May 2019.
Law enforcement
Chief Steven Casstevens (IL)
Buffalo Grove Police Department
SCasstevens@vbg.org
Lieutenant Matt Myers (GA)
Peachtree City Police Department
mmyers@peachtree-city.org
Mike Sabol (DC)
Project Manager, National Sheriffs’ Association (NSA)
msabol@sheriffs.org
Toxicology
Amy Miles (WI)
Director of Forensic Toxicology, Wisconsin Laboratory of Hygiene
amy.miles@slh.wisc.edu
Prosecution
Stephen Talpins (FL)
Chief of Staff, Miami-Dade State Attorney’s Office
sktalpins@aol.com
Joanne Thomka (VA)
Director, National Traffic Law Center
jthomka@ndaajustice.org
Judiciary
Judge Robert Anchondo (TX)
County Criminal Court at Law, El Paso
DWI Academy Court
NHTSA Regional Judicial Outreach Liaison (JOL)
RoAnchondo@epcounty.com
Judge Mike Barrasse (PA)
President Judge, Court of Common Pleas, Lackawanna County, PA
Pennsylvania Judicial Outreach Liaison (JOL)
mbarrasse@gmail.com
Judge John Kennedy (Ret). (PA)
Court of Common Pleas, York County, PA
NHTSA Regional Judicial Outreach Liaison (JOL)
jskennedy17402@gmail.com
Judge Richard Vlavianos (CA)
Superior Court of San Joaquin County, CA
Multi-track DUI Court
NHTSA Regional Judicial Outreach Liaison (JOL)
richard.vlavianos@sjcourts.org
Supervision and Treatment
Jim Eberspacher (MN)
Director, National Center for DWI Courts (NCDC)
JEberspacher@nadcp.org
Dr. Sarah Nelson
Director of Research, Division on Addiction
Cambridge Health Alliance
snelson@hms.harvard.edu
Julie Seitz (MN)
Program Director, National Center for DWI Courts (NCDC)
jseitz@dwicourts.org
Mark Stodola (AZ)
Probation Fellow, American Probation and Parole Association (APPA)
m_stodola@hotmail.com
Administration and Policy
Pam Fischer (NJ)
Senior Director of External Engagement and Special Projects
Governors Highway Safety Association (GHSA)
Pam.fischer@ghsa.org
Lisa Freeman (LA)
Executive Director & Governor’s Representative
Louisiana Highway Safety Commission
lisa.freeman@la.gov
Russ Martin (DC)
Director of Policy and Government Relations, Governors Highway Safety Association (GHSA)
rmartin@ghsa.org
Elise Simonsen (DC)
Policy Analyst, National Governors Association
esimonsen@NGA.org
Responsibility.org staff:
Brandy Axdahl, Senior Vice President, Responsibility Initiatives, Responsibility.org Brandy.Axdahl@Responsibility.org
Maureen Dalbec, Chief Operating Officer & Senior Vice President, Research and Data Analysis Maureen.Dalbec@Responsibility.org
Erin Holmes, Vice President & Technical Writer, Criminal Justice Programs and Policy, Responsibility.org Erin.Holmes@Responsibility.org
Sam Nathews, Vice President, Communications & Branding Sam.Nathews@Responsibility.org
Darrin T. Grondel (WA)
Former Director, Washington Traffic Safety Commission
Chairman, GHSA Board of Directors
Current: Vice President of Traffic Safety and Government Relations, Responsibility.org
Darrin.grondel@responsibility.org
Samantha Bloch (CO)
Transportation Policy Associate, National Conference of State Legislatures(NCSL)
samantha.bloch@ncsl.org
