Wisconsin Watch Media Partners Center (https://partners.wisconsinwatch.org/tag/under-the-influence/)
Some drunken drivers are required to attend panels where they hear from victims of drunken driving and their families. But the panels often fail to keep offenders from driving drunk again, and may even increase the chances they will.
“This time, I’m confident, I’m willing, I’m able and I want the sobriety,” says Andrew MacGillis, currently in Fox Lake Correctional Institution on his seventh drunken driving offense. But treatment may prove elusive for MacGillis, who says he has not been offered rehabilitation programs at Fox Lake. Others face a delay or are found noncompliant with court-ordered interviews that qualify them for treatment.
How did Republican backing in a GOP-controlled state, overwhelming public support and virtually no opposition add up to the legislative defeat of a package of drunken driving bills aiming to increase penalties?
More than a dozen bills aimed at addressing drunken driving in Wisconsin were introduced in the 2013-14 legislative session. Almost all failed to pass.
In their resignation letter, the four accused the Wisconsin Department of Transportation’s Statewide Impaired Driving Task Force of focusing “on interventions that have little impact or are not proven to be effective.” They cited various slights that led them to conclude the state was uninterested in their input.