Two years after the nation-wide introduction of the Alcohol Traffic Education Programme (ATEP) for drunken drivers a new experimental programme was started by the name of 'Prologue. This programme serves as an alternative sanction for those alcohol-traffic offenders with blood-alcohol levels below the criteria for a regular ATEP. The Prologue programme is a shorter and less comprehensive version of ATEP. Participants of the Prologue programme are generally younger and have committed fewer alcohol-traffic offences than the participants of ATEP. Both groups are rather similar in a relatively high level of general delinquency. The effects of Prologue were evaluated using the same methodology as for the ATEP study. The effects on relevant knowledge of the risks of drinking and driving and on relevant attitudes as concerns participating in (high-speed) traffic after drinking alcohol were measured directly before and after participation in the programme. Participants were contacted again one year after the programme for a repeated measurement of both knowledge and attitudes. Apart from this, judicially registered alcohol-traffic offences in the year after participation in Prologue were used to measure the possible effects on relevant behaviour. For this purpose recidivism rates of participants of Prologue were compared to those of alcohol-traffic offenders of similar 'seriousness' who had not taken part in a programme. Most of the principal evaluation results of both the ATEP and the Prologue studies are remarkably similar: - a strong and lasting increase in relevant knowledge; - a strong and lasting change in attitudes and intended behaviour in the desired direction; - a slightly lower level (statistically not significant) of alcohol-traffic recidivism of participants of the programme, compared to the control-group; - the consistent presence, even after one year, of changes in knowledge and attitudes with participants of both the Prologue programme and the ATEP. The similarity of evaluation results of interventions with different levels of intensity raises the question whether or not the least exacting intervention (in terms of finances and workload for the judicial system) would suffice as the alternative part of the sanction for drunken driving. As yet it is, however, not clear if a 'light' intervention would also lead to similar results with more serious alcohol-traffic offenders. (Author/publisher)
Samenvatting