Working with the Judiciary
From Spring 1997Volume IV, Number 1
Traffic safety and public health professionals are usually strong advocates of laws that will prevent motor vehicle injuries: laws such as those that concern driving while intoxicated (DWI), safety belt and child safety seat use, and speeding. The courts ultimately decide the fate of those who violate these laws and put themselves and others in danger. Traffic safety and public health professionals are beginning to learn that judges can be powerful allies in efforts to prevent motor vehicle injuries.
Judges can ensure that those convicted of DWI violations are appropriately punished and obtain treatment for alcohol or drug problems. They can enforce safety belt and child occupant laws. Judges can also play important roles off the bench. They can work with state agencies to set up an effective DWI tracking system to ensure that court-ordered treatment is completed before licensing is restored. And they can cooperate with citizen groups that monitor court proceedings and records (which are public information) to ensure that second and third DWI offenders are presented and sentenced as such in court.
Further, judges can collaborate with community organizations and with state and local agencies to educate the public about the importance of safety belts and child safety seats and of obeying traffic laws, especially DWI laws. Some judges speak to high school audiences or participate in mock DWI trials for young people. Judges can also educate themselves and their colleagues about drug and alcohol dependence and treatment, the role of speed in motor vehicle collisions, and the importance of technologies, including seat belts and child safety seats. Moreover, they can work with their state's judicial educator to bring this information to their colleagues. This is especially critical in districts in which judges are elected who may have no special expertise in these matters and thus underestimate the potential consequences of violating DWI or occupant protection laws.
A growing collaborative practice involving judges and community partners is
sentencing programs for young traffic offenders. One of the first such programs
was the Traffic Offenders Program (TOP). Judge Foley of the Macon County
(Missouri) Associate Circuit Court was frustrated because, while there were a
number of treatment and educational programs available for young DWI offenders,
there were none for those who had been convicted of speeding. So in 1987 he
went to Missouri HEADS UP, a program of the Health Sciences Center/University
of Missouri, with the idea of creating an educational program for young
traffic offenders that would dramatically demonstrate the potential injury
consequences of their actions. HEADS UP is the Missouri brain and spinal cord
injury prevention program that provided the model for the nationwide THINK
FIRST program. And thus was born TOP.
This one-day program targets young people between the ages of 16 and 22 who have been convicted of speeding violations. During a tour of a Level I trauma facility, they are exposed to some of the medical consequences of high-speed collisions. Participants meet with emergency room nurses, rehab-ilitation therapists, and neurosurgeons and tour areas of the hospital, including the neuro-surgery intensive care unit and the physical and occupational therapy area. The luncheon speaker is a person who has been disabled as the result of a motor vehicle injury.
The program is mandatory. Participants do not avoid other sanctions by participating. TOP reports back to the judge on whether offenders attended the program. Some of the judges require offenders to submit an essay on what they have learned in the program. TOP was originally funded by the Missouri Division of Highway Safety and the Missouri Department of Health but is now self-sustaining. Participants must pay a $60 fee to the program, in addition to any other fines imposed by the court.
Most TOP participants are young men between the ages of 16 and 18. Judges tend to send to the program those offenders who were caught traveling at the highest speeds or under the most dangerous circumstances. TOP has proven successful enough that it is now affiliated with 10 county and municipal courts and has been replicated in three other areas of Missouri.
The essays prepared by the young offenders attest to the program's power. In the words of one 16 year old, "The program taught me a lesson that having to pay my ticket, going to court, and getting grounded could never teach me--it taught me how fragile life is."
The Young Adult Pre-DUI Visitation Program takes referrals from courts in three California counties, as well as schools. Like FACT, this program seeks to intervene with youth before they become involved in impaired driving. Along with a visit to the hospital trauma unit, this program features a session in the office of the county coroner or medical examiner. Participant fees have made the program self-sustaining.
TOP has been taken national by the Emergency Nurses Association (ENA). The ENA program, called Brake the Habit, is one of 10 model projects included in ENA's Campaign Safe & Sober, which is discussed further in A Crash Course in Motor Vehicle Injury Prevention.
For more information on the programs and resources described in this article, see Resources on Working with the Judiciary.
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Revised: June 24, 1997
