The San Bernardino County Probation Department has been awarded a $510,636 grant from the California Office of Traffic Safety (OTS), ensuring that high-risk, felony, and repeat DUI offenders are complying with all court orders. These offenders are over-represented in traffic crashes involving alcohol and other drugs, often with tragic results. “The DUI program grant provides the added resources needed to specifically target an offender population more likely to represent a risk to public safety and it combines evidence-based substance abuse treatment and suppression of offender conduct,” Chief Probation Officer Michelle Scray Brown said. “This allows probation officers to both provide rehabilitative services to DUI offenders and protect the community through one innovative approach.”
The grant will allow Probation Department personnel to intensely monitor drivers on probation for felony DUI or multiple misdemeanor DUI convictions, including conducting unannounced home searches and random alcohol and drug testing, special monitoring to ensure compliance with court-ordered DUI education and treatment programs, and sending up to four law enforcement personnel to the NHTSA Standardized Field Sobriety Testing certified training.
This grant puts special focus on high-risk repeat DUI offenders aimed at reducing the number of persons killed and injured in alcohol and other drug-related collisions in the county. In 2014, 102 were killed and 1,592 injured in such crashes in San Bernardino County. “Probation supervision of court-imposed terms help ensure that these offenders are not a risk to others,” said OTS Director Rhonda Craft. “By working on compliance, the San Bernardino County Probation Department, with assistance from the Office of Traffic Safety, will be helping keep the streets across San Bernardino County safe for all.”
While alcohol remains the worst cause of DUI crashes, San Bernardino County Probation supports the new effort from OTS that aims to increase awareness that “DUI Doesn’t Just Mean Booze.” Prescription medications and marijuana can also be impairing by themselves, or in combination with alcohol, and can result in a DUI arrest. Funding for this grant is from the California Office of Traffic Safety, through the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration.