UNM
DWI study shows treatment prevents re-arrest
By Steve
Carr
Drunk drivers
who completed a treatment program in one New Mexico county were
less likely to be arrested again for driving under the influence
than those who did not undergo treatment, according to a new
study conducted by the Center on Alcoholism, Substance Abuse,
and Addictions (CASAA) at UNM.
The study,
Rearrest Rates After Incarceration for DWI: A Comparative
Study in a Southwestern U.S. County, was conducted by
Gill Woodall, director, Prevention, Education and Research Branch
at CASAA, and associate professor in the Communication and Journalism
Department.
The research,
originally funded by a $2.5 million grant awarded by the National
Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism, was conducted in
San Juan County in northwestern New Mexico where alcohol-related
crashes accounted for more than $94 million in economic costs.
Woodall found that nearly 30 percent of offenders were less
likely to be rearrested for DWI in the five years following
their first arrest than those who did not complete the program.
Jim Davis,
director of the Division of Government Research, a division
of the Bureau of Business and Economic Research at UNM, provided
records for all driving while intoxicated arrests in San Juan
County, from Aug. 1994 through March 2001, and Woodall and his
colleagues analyzed the data. The county instituted a DWI treatment
program in 1994 that included 28 days of jail time and individual
and group treatment.
The program,
which focuses on first-time offenders, incarcerates participants
in a minimum security facility and provides a multicomponent
treatment program. During incarceration, offenders receive inpatient
treatment, designed to be culturally appropriate.
The specific
treatment components included: alcohol use, abuse and dependence;
health and nutrition; psychological effects of alcohol abuse;
a drinking and driving awareness; a stress management; and goal-setting,
in which clients devise an action plan for their immediate future.
Other components are focused on family issues and alcohol; domestic
violence; HIV/AIDS prevention; and a work release program.