In Northern Ireland if a person is convicted of a drink driving offence1, the courts can refer them to a course aimed at targeting these behaviours. The Course for Drink Drive Offenders (CDDO) is run by TTC2000 on behalf of the Department of the Environment for Northern Ireland. It is a voluntary course aiming to prevent people from committing drink driving offences by making them aware: ?of the effects of alcohol on their driving and wider health, ?of the legal consequence of drink-driving, ?of the impact on victims of drink driving incidents and the wider impact on victims’ families. A reduction in driving disqualification times of up to 25 per cent is offered as an incentive for completing the course. To assess the impact of CDDO on reoffending, a treatment group of participants who completed CDDO during 2010/11 was compared to a matched control group of people who had neither been referred to or completed the course but who had engaged in similar drink drive offences during 2010/11. Further analysis was completed to compare a treatment group of participants who were referred to but did not complete CDDO during 2010/11, to a matched control group of people who had neither been referred to or completed the course who but had engaged in similar drink drive offences during 2010/11. Key Findings: *The current analysis indicates that completing the Course for Drink Drive Offenders significantly reduced the one and two year reoffending rates of course completers compared to a matched sample of non-attending offenders. *T here is insufficient evidence at this stage to draw conclusions about the longer term impact of the programme, as no significant difference was found in the three year reoffending rates between course completers and their matched sample. * Similarly, the differences in the one, two and three year reoffending rates for those who were referred but did not attend and their matched sample were not statistically significant. (Author/publisher)
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