Houston-area courts look to treat DWI offenders, not corral them
On a recent August morning, dozens of defendants waited in Judge Mike Fields’ misdemeanor courtroom in Harris County. They had driven drunk or assaulted people or otherwise run afoul of the law.
Fields looked down from his perch at one defendant, a young woman arrested after driving drunk and crashing her car.
In the coming weeks, she would face an expensive choice — weeks in jail or 15 months of probation, with costly monthly fees.
Addiction experts say many defendants need treatment, which is available only through probation. But that route proves so arduous that many defendants arrested on drunken-driving charges choose jail time instead.
For those accused of impaired driving, state law prohibits deferred adjudication, a sentence that would allow defendants to have their case dismissed if they completed their probation successfully. That means defendants have far less incentive to accept both a conviction and a time-consuming and costly probation.
As far back as 2010, Texas lawmakers considered removing barriers that prevent defendants from receiving deferred adjudication sentences. A study commission’s report advocated allowing judges “to tailor the level of supervision and intervention required after professional assessment has been conducted.”
Nearly a decade later, despite widespread consensus from prosecutors, probation officials, judges and others that deferred adjudication would help prod more troubled drivers into treatment, the law remains unchanged.
Prosecutors have devised workarounds, in some cases, by placing first-time offenders in pretrial intervention programs. Secondor third-time offenders may benefit from SOBER courts, but for those with a first offense, there is little incentive to seek probation.
“If we know treatment works, we should incentivize treatment,” Fields said. “Right now, we’re incentivizing jail time and getting (sentences) over with.”
As a result, thousands of lowlevel defendants take a jail sentence rather than probation, a review of Harris County records shows. In four of the past five years, defendants ended up in jail more often than on probation, where they could receive more mental health services.
“They had a drinking and driving problem when they went in,” said Dr. Teresa May, director of the Harris County Community Supervision and Corrections Department. “They’re going to have a drinking and driving problem when they come out.”
For the first time in 2017, defendants were more likely to land on probation than in jail. Reformminded officials say it’s a better solution.
“Being compassionate and doing what works isn’t soft on crime, it’s just,” Fields said. “How are we going to change behavior if we’re making it so onerous they won’t do it?”
Meanwhile, the most serious drunken-driving offenders sent to Texas penitentiaries often aren’t able to obtain the treatment they need. Every year, thousands of inmates flood Texas prisons after convictions for drunken driving — but the state doesn’t have nearly enough beds to treat them.
During the last fiscal year, for example, more than 6,600 men were sent to Texas prisons on drunken driving-related convictions. Of those, fewer than 1,500 received treatment through the system’s DWI Recovery Program. Of 563 female offenders, 148 were able to seek treatment.
“We’ve got thousands sentenced to prison for three or more DWIs and released without receiving one day of treatment,” said state Sen. John Whitmire, D-Houston, who advocated for recent expansions in the state prison system’s treatment program. “That’s insane.”