April 16, 2012

GENGA, THOMPSON TARGET DWI LOOPHOLE

By Ed Jacovino, Jounal Inquirer

Paul Waters, who operates a program in Manchester for drunken drivers, said he didn’t know lawmakers had written his program off the books until clients stopped showing up in January.

“We lost all our business,” Waters said. His company, the Commonwealth Group on Center Street, was one of three programs in Connecticut that the Department of Motor Vehicles had authorized to operate an evaluation and treatment program for those convicted of drunken driving.

But the budget that state lawmakers and Gov. Dannel P. Malloy signed off on last year removed that requirement. Court probation officers now handle any substance-abuse treatment that drunken drivers need.

The budget also reduced from one year to 45 days the license suspension for drivers arrested for the first time on a drunken driving charge and required that those drivers install an ignition interlock device, which measures a driver’s blood-alcohol level before allowing the car to start. Previous law had required the device for a second arrest but not for the first.

Two area lawmakers want to restore the substance-abuse treatment program.

Reps. Henry Genga (D-East Hartford) and Jack Thompson (D-Manchester) support legislation that again would require the program. The measure also aims to catch some 21,000 people who some officials say never had enrolled in the program and now don’t have to in order to get their licenses back.

Michael P. Lawlor, Malloy’s undersecretary for criminal justice policy, is lukewarm to the change. Malloy supported the changes in law last year.

“The law cannot allow these 21,000 chronic alcohol abusers who are mandated to complete this program to get a pardon,” Genga told Judiciary Committee members last month.

Genga touted the program’s success. It has a 7 percent recidivism rate, which means 93 percent of the people who go through the program don’t get stopped again for drunken driving, he said.

Thompson pointed out that offenders were required to pay for the program.

“It doesn’t cost the state anything to continue this program,” Thompson said. “It is a demonstration of their responsibility and meeting that responsibility.”

Lawlor said lawmakers are welcome to require the programs again. “If the legislature wants to add this back, that’s fine. It’s not a bad idea, necessarily,” he said.