24/7 Programs in Rural Areas
Methods
Program Identification and Selection
The first task was to identify jurisdictions that are currently operating twice-daily alcohol-testing programs for DWI offenders. First, the NHTSA Task Order Manager sent an e-mail to each NHTSA Regional Administrator describing the project and asking them to provide information and contacts for any States in their region who might have 24/7 or similar programs for DWI offenders. Responses to these e-mails were forwarded to the research team for follow-up. Additional efforts to identify relevant programs were made via a request to the executive director of the Governor’s Highway Safety Association to e-mail the governor’s representatives or coordinators for highway safety describing the research project and requesting information on the existence of any 24/7 or similar programs. Similarly, a request was made to the Mothers Against Drunk Driving Public Policy Office to send an e-mail to all of its chapters and affiliates describing the study and asking about any 24/7 programs in their States and communities. Finally, the research team reviewed prior projects conducted for NHTSA on ISP programs for relevant program information. Based on information provided by the aforementioned sources, a list of potential 24/7 alcohol-monitoring programs was compiled. All leads on potential 24/7 programs were followed up by telephone calls to the relevant contact people to gather more information about the nature of the programs. Based on the information gathered in these follow-up contacts and in consultation with the NHTSA TOM, four programs were selected as being appropriate. The four programs to be included in this task were the 24/7 sobriety programs in Montana, North Dakota, South Dakota, and the DUI Supervised Probation Program in Fremont County, Wyoming.
Following the identification of relevant 24/7 programs, two rounds of structured telephone discussions were conducted to gather information to (a) document characteristics of 24/7 or similar alcohol-monitoring programs for DWI offenders and (b) develop recommendations on further information that would be necessary to complete the feasibility study. To document current 24/7 programs, information was gathered from the sites regarding legislation establishing the program, administrative rules, costs, staffing, participant enrollment, monitoring equipment, and program structure. In addition to the two rounds of discussions, information sent by the programs and accessed by online searches was used to supplement the data from officials.
For the first round of structured discussions, a key official with extensive knowledge of the program statewide was identified and contacted. The purpose of the initial discussion was to gather qualitative information and process data on the following issues:
Information gleaned from the Round 1 data collection was used to develop discussion guides for use in telephone contacts with a representative from the States’ attorneys general offices and local officials involved in program implementation: judges, prosecutors, sheriffs, and parole/probation officers. The purpose of the second round of structured discussions was to gather more in-depth information from key stakeholders directly involved in operating the programs in local communities and establishing the programs at the State level.
For each of the three States with statewide 24/7 programs, two counties were identified—the county that pilot-tested the program and the most populous county to provide the closest comparison to urban jurisdictions. In South Dakota, although the 24/7 program was pilot tested in Bennett County, it is a small county that currently has only 20 active offenders in the program, many of whom are testing in locations in other counties. In addition, Bennett County only conducts breath testing via preliminary breath-test units and does not use any other alcohol-monitoring technologies typically used by 24/7 programs (e.g., TAM). In contrast, Pennington County, which includes Rapid City, has 547 active program participants and uses other alcohol-monitoring tools. As a result, the 24/7 sobriety program coordinator in South Dakota suggested that given the study’s objectives, Pennington County would provide more appropriate data than Bennett. Thus, our final sample of local communities were located in Montana—Lewis and Clark County (pilot test) and Yellowstone County (most populous); North Dakota—Burleigh County (pilot test) and Cass County (most populous); and South Dakota— Minnehaha County (most populous) and Pennington County (substitution for pilot county). In addition, discussions were also held with officials in Fremont County, Wyoming.
To identify appropriate local officials, solicitations were made to the Round 1 State-level contact, the States’ traffic safety resource prosecutors, and local officials who had participated in the first several Round 2 telephone discussions (e.g., a prosecutor who provided names of potential judges). These sources were supplemented with online searches. Structured discussions were conducted with representatives of States’ attorney general offices and local community officials and information gleaned from these discussions was used to enhance the case studies developed in Round 1.