Treatment of persons charged with driving under the influence: A multimodal program design.

摘要

Driving under the influence of alcohol or drugs affects all segments of society putting a large strain on the transportation system, health care system and impacting on all other industries directly or indirectly. Social and governmental action have been evident through laws and regulations and the use of education and treatment programs for persons convicted of driving under the influence.; At the core of the issue remains the concern about how to treat the DUI offender. Is he or she a criminal that should be punished, or is he or she a person with a disease or lack of information about what is he or she doing to himself or herself or could do to others? Evidently, individuals with DUI charges are a heterogeneous group in terms of demographic variables, behavioral and cognitive characteristics and psychological profiles. The literature shows that inflexible penalties of legal sanctions by itself have been unsuccessful in reducing the number of "driving under the influence." Established treatment programs often posted less than ideal results for effectiveness. Apparently many programs do not meet the individual needs of each offender.; The purpose of this study is to develop a program design that meets the treatment requirements of such a diverse population. At the same time to work in coordination with the criminal justice system helping to make legal sanctions more effective in the reduction of driving under the influence recidivism.; The program design is based in principles of Arnold Lazarus' Multimodal approach. This approach provides the possibility of individualized and unique assessment procedures and the necessary flexibility and versatility required to treat each client as a unique individual.; The primary assessment tools are the Multimodal Life History Inventory (Lazarus, 1981) which was developed to assess each area of the Lazarus' theorized BASIC-ID and the Substance Abuse Screening Inventory-3 (SASSI-3) designed to assess the presence of a substance dependence disorder. This test is resistant to the defensiveness of the test taker and detect the presence of denial.; The program attempts to reduce the recidivism rate of DUI offenders providing a comprehensive, multimodal approach that will cover the different areas of conflict presented by each client. Emphasis is placed in the coordination and compliance with the legal system requirements in order to maintain an interaction between treatment and the criminal justice system.; The objective is clear, a comprehensive and multimodal treatment approach in coordination with legal sanctions, tailored to the needs of the individual offender to help reduce recidivism and to provide better treatment to this population.