This study was undertaken to assess a 28-day detention and treatment program's effect, in a multiethnic county with high rates of alcohol-related arrests and crashes, on first-time offenders sentenced for driving while impaired (DWI). The authors used comparison of baseline characteristics, survival curves of subsequent arrest, and Cox proportional hazards regression to examine probability of rearrest of those sentenced and those not sentenced to the program. Probability of not being rearrested was significantly higher for the treatment group after adjustment for covariates. At 5 years, probability of not being rearrested for the treatment vs the nontreatment group was 76.6% vs 59.9%. Results suggest that this county's program has significantly affected rearrest rates for Native Americans, Hispanics, and non-Hispanic Whites. (Author/publisher)
Abstract