Deterrent for Drunk Drivers Weighed : Jurisprudence: Judges consider expanding a program that requires offenders to meet with family members of people killed in alcohol-related accidents.

Ventura County municipal judges are considering expanding a program that requires drunk drivers to meet face-to-face with family members of people killed in alcohol-related accidents.

Under a proposal by the local chapter of Mothers Against Drunk Driving, first-time offenders would be ordered to attend victim-impact panels that detail through words and pictures the grief and trauma that families endure.

Youthful and multiple offenders already are often required to complete the workshops, but the court, probation officials and MADD leaders are drawing up expansion plans that would force most convicted drunk drivers to attend.

“The program has an excellent reputation as having a great impact on people who attend to bring home the seriousness of what’s involved and what could happen,” said Municipal Judge Vincent J. O’Neill Jr.

“Everyone favors implementing it if possible, but what we’re examining is what is the right level which people should attend.”

Ventura County already boasts some of the toughest penalties for drunk drivers in California. First-time DUI offenders here typically receive three years of formal probation, county jail time or a work-release requirement, a fine of $1,470 and a mandate to complete a three-month alcohol-treatment program.

Mandatory attendance of the victim-impact panel would be in addition to those penalties.

“It’s an added sanction, but on the other hand, Ventura County is one of the few counties that has had a decrease in DUI offenders,” said Doug Hansen, who oversees the DUI program for the county Probation Department.

Ventura County pared its drunk-driving convictions by about 4% between 1991 and 1992, Hansen said.

“That was not a statewide trend, so something’s working,” he said. “We do a lot of things in this offense area because this has been a priority of the court for some time.”

Public Defender Kenneth I. Clayman said he has concerns about how much offenders might pay for the program. In addition, he said, typical DUI offenders already have to attend alcohol school and other programs. “There are only so many hours in the day,” Clayman said.

However, he said, “I don’t oppose it. There may be some people who would really be sobered up by that experience.”

Christina L. Briles, a public defender supervising misdemeanor crimes, said that for first-time offenders, “The most effective deterrent is taking their license away.”

As for sessions with drunk-driving victims, she said, “I would anticipate something like that would fizzle out because most of the people committing these offenses don’t intend to commit a crime.”

At any given time, the county Probation Department has 8,000 or more people on probation for drunk driving. The department’s 1992 average was 9,352, he said.

But administering another program requiring attendance at the victim-impact panels creates a slew of logistic challenges that still must be worked out, officials say.

“I’m aware of the size of MADD’s organization,” Hansen said. “It’s a good organization, but it isn’t a cast of thousands. I’m concerned that if (the program) wildly expands, it would be diluted and the effectiveness of the program would dribble off to nothing.”

MADD sponsors a monthly panel in Ventura that typically draws about 125 convicted drunk drivers. The nonprofit group also offers a Simi Valley session six times a year that attracts more than 80 people, Ventura MADD chapter President Linda Oxenreider said.

“We have been told by every defendant that has come up to talk to us that we are the only thing that got through to them,” said Oxenreider, who joined MADD after a 1989 car accident that claimed the life of her 19-year-old son, Jason, and two others.

“They tell us all the jail time and fines don’t really get through to them,” she said. “But when they see people relating the things they went through, then it hits home.”

At the one- to two-hour meetings, a panel of victims talks about the effect that losing a family member has placed on their family. Storyboards depicting family gatherings are posted throughout the room.

“As soon as someone starts telling about what happened to them, they become very quiet and they listen very intently,” Oxenreider said of those who attend the panels. “Most of the time, we see some of them break down into tears.”

But MADD would probably have to charge a fee for the expanded service to make up for renting a larger facility and providing more literature to offenders, Oxenreider said.

That may pose another problem for officials, who are investigating whether MADD could administer the program itself or whether other agencies should be given the opportunity to bid on a contract to provide the services.

Oxenreider said MADD is the only agency in Ventura County providing the victim-impact panels.

No one in his office opposes forcing DUI offenders to complete the extra program, Hansen said.

“It’s more like, can we do it effectively without creating massive logjams where we have thousands of people waiting to try to get in to fill this one term (of probation),” he said.

O’Neill said discussion is continuing and a preliminary recommendation could be made to the court as soon as next month.