UNDERAGE ALCOHOL EDUCATION PROGRAM

In 2004 a group of law enforcement officers from Iowa County, State Patrol, Dodgeville, Mineral Point and Highland Police Departments, along with representatives from Unified Counseling, Southwest Technical College, Madison Area Technical College, the DA at that time, the Judge and myself, sat down to put together a program to deal with the underage alcohol problems we were facing in the county.  It was the consensus that we needed to do something different because these youth issued citations weren’t taking it seriously.  Repeat offenders were far too frequent.

We came up with the program that would suspend the underage individuals driver license for 90 days upon conviction of a first offense possession/consumption charge.  It was agreed upon that the Judge would stay that suspension for 30 day to allow the youth time to enroll in an acceptable underage alcohol & other drug education/information course.  SWTC & MATC put together a 15 hour course for an additional fee of $80 and PICADA in Madison offers an acceptable course for $100.  Initially that was the only course I was able to offer the offenders.  As the program matured and offenders were coming from out of county and out of state, I had to explore other programs that would also be acceptable.  I now have a number of high quality programs in Madison, Milwaukee, throughout WI, Illinois and Iowa.  The State and County Parks in Iowa County bring in a large number of underage offenders.  The majority of those being from out of the county.

I meet with the offenders every other morning prior to Court to explain what will be happening as a result of a conviction for these offenses.  I explain the programs that we will accept in order to save the loss of their licenses.  I give them referral forms and instructions.  We then go back into the courtroom and the Judge calls the underage offenders at the end of the traffic calendar for that day.  I track all enrollments using excel worksheets.  I inform Clerk of Courts of all enrollments and compliant offenders, by name, course attending, date and case number.  If no proof of enrollment is received in 30 days or an offender is non-compliant, I inform Clerk of Courts to suspend the drivers licence.  I do deal with underage offender and parents most every weekend and many evenings by phone.  It seems that a good share of the offenders wait until the last minute to deal with this and scramble to get enrolled so they don’t loose their licenses.