Lane County Municipal Court judges may now require persons between the ages of 18 and 20 to attend treatment when cited for a first-offense minor in possession of alcohol.
The Eugene City Council voted unanimously Monday night to adopt an amendment to the city code that deals with penalties for an MIP within city limits. Before the decision, the only option for judges was to impose a fine with a maximum limit of $250.
“We wanted to have this authority,” Municipal Court Judge Wayne Allen told the council before the 8-0 vote. “We don’t now.”
Court Administrator Kristie Hammitt said the move was more for clarification than to change laws, and that the court brought the amendment before the council to ensure judges knew whether they could force offenders into the program.
“We’re an education-based court,” she said, adding that the hope is for treatment to prevent future offenses.
The court already offers a treatment option to first-time offenders. Allen said the treatment is a one-day class on the dangers of excessive drinking.
“I don’t expect a class will convince a college student that they never want to drink again,” Allen said in an interview. But he said imposing treatment in lieu of a fine was “in the hopes that some little light might come on, however dim it might be, so they aren’t charged with driving under the influence” later on.
Allen told the council that there had been probably 10 new cases of driving under the influence of intoxicants in court Monday, and at least eight of those had been people under the age of 22.
“These are U of O cases mostly, and the vast majority decide” to do treatment, Allen said.
The treatment option, or diversion program, costs less than the maximum fine. And if no other alcohol-related offenses occur during the next four months, the program leads to a dismissal of the charges.
Allen said the trend he has seen in the courtroom involved young people who escalate their alcohol offenses until eventually ending up with a DUII.
“Now you’ll see 70 percent maybe are under the age of 25, and you look at their record and you see they’ve had two or three or four minor in possession or consumptions,” he said.
Allen hopes that treatment will lead to fewer repeat offenders.
“Certainly we have to try to do something,” he said. “It’s a pretty fruitless thing to charge someone a fee and not try to give them some education.”
Allen said in 2006 there were 183 cases of second-offense MIP and 50 were a third time offense or greater.
Eugene police spokeswoman Kerry Delf wrote in an e-mail that EPD made 654 total arrests in 2006 for MIP and 675 in 2005.
The City of Eugene applies its own code to MIPs handed out in city limits. The Oregon law governing MIP punishment requires treatment for second offenses that is the same as a diversion program for DUII convictions. Allen said this can be costly and require a time commitment of eight to 12 weeks.
“When we use the word treatment, I kind of wince because I think of that as a long term, expensive program that is not warranted by someone with a second minor in possession,” Allen said. “The state statute I think is a bit impractical. It’s financially impractical and it seems to elevate the minor in possession to the state of what people with driving under the influence are expected to do.”
[email protected]