Do Victim Talks Benefit DWI Offenders?

B O S T O N, Oct. 11, 2000 -- Gene Gierek, 46, recognizes apathy in an alcoholic’s eyes.

Every month, Gierek drives down to the First Congregational Church in Bellvue, Wash., and pleads with drunk drivers at “victim impact panels” to consider the potential effect on victims when they get behind the wheel. But for many, the message never gets through.

“To be honest, it probably sinks in about 10 percent [of the time],” he says. “You can see it in their face — when the light has turned on or when the light never even came on.”

Shaming Drunk Drivers Started in the 1980s, victim impact panels are court-ordered programs where drunk drivers come face to face with those who have lost loved ones to their crime. The hope is that hearing the devastating effects of their action will shame drunken drivers into not becoming repeat offenders.

But research remains inconclusive about these panels: The programs may only prevent very few people from drinking and driving again. Yet proponents of the panels say they at least help some people. Doubters, however, say they may be a waste of resources and believe different preventive measures, such as lowering the blood alcohol limit, might be a better way to prevent drunk driving.

Although Gierek speaks at these meetings, he is not a victim. Thirteen years ago, on the night of his best friend’s 33rd birthday, Gierek passed out behind the wheel and struck a guardrail, instantly killing his companion. After serving 42 months in jail, Gierek was still drinking and driving and was arrested a second time.

It wasn’t until he attended — and began speaking himself — at a victim impact panel that he was able to finally get sober.

Panels Widespread Victim impact panels began in Washington and in Massachusetts, and Mothers Against Drunk Driving has helped coordinate the programs since 1982. Since then, they have become a mandated part of the judicial system in around 300 counties within 46 states, with fees collected from the offenders to perpetuate the programs.

The programs are typically held in courthouse auditoriums or church basements, where three or four victims of a drunk driving accident or loved ones of victims, tell the assembled group of convicted drunk drivers about the emotional effects their tragic losses had on their lives. Sometimes a reformed drunk driver — like Gierek — also will speak.

Shirley Anderson began the panels in Bellevue, Wash., with the help of a judge after her son, Mark, a member of the Air Force, was killed by a drunk driver.

“When Mark was killed, my world crashed down around me,” she tells the assembled group of drunk drivers. “I stumbled around trying to figure out why this would happen. Now, whenever we hear a 21-gun salute, that snaps us into remembering, because Mark had one, too.”

Proponents say victim impact panels work because they assign responsibility to the behavior without attacking the person. “It’s condemning the deed, not the person, in a non-blaming manner” explains Stuart Fors, director of the department of health promotion and behavior at the University of Georgia in Athens. “If you start pointing fingers, people shut off.”

Many offenders leave the groups swearing they will change their ways. “By the blood of my soul, I will not drink and drive,” one offender wrote afterward. “I will fight with tooth and nail those who dare.”

“Defendants come up afterward and hug us and apologize,” Anderson says. “I know we have a strong impact on these offenders.”

Too Drunk to Care? But others are indifferent or may be too addicted to heed the message.

Only a few studies in the scientific literature have vigorously tested the panels’ effectiveness — and the findings are mixed. Of drunk drivers arrested for the first time, an estimated 20 percent to 28 percent will repeat their offense.

Studies have revealed that victim impact panels reduced repeat offenses by as little as 10 percent to as much as 65 percent. A 1999 study published in the Journal of Studies on Alcohol compared 12-month re-arrest rates for offenders before and after a victim impact panel was instituted in a Georgia county. The researchers found those who attended a panel had a 6 percent re-arrest rate, while those who hadn’t attended the panels had a 15 percent re-arrest rate.

But a more recent study, from the September issue of Alcoholism: Clinical & Experimental Research examined more than 5,000 drivers convicted of a first-time driving-while-intoxicated offense and found that attending a victim impact panel had a insignificant impact on re-arrest rates. And the gold standard of research, a randomized study, which was recently completed, also found no effect.

Better Strategies? “We need to concentrate our resources into programs that are effective, and perhaps victim impact panels shouldn’t be a top priority,“ says Sandra Lapham, director of the Behavioral Health Research Center of the Southwest in Albuquerque, N.M., who helped conduct the September study.

Other more effective strategies to discourage repeated drunk driving may include license suspension, car impounding, ignition locks with installed breathalizer tests, intensive probation, and jail time, Lapham says.

William Miller, director of research at the Center on Alcoholism, Substance Abuse and Addictions at the University of New Mexico in Albuquerque says the panels were widely adopted before being properly tested.

“If the state is going to coerce an offender to accept a prevention program, there ought to be reasonably sound evidence that the program is beneficial,” Miller notes. “Unfortunately, confrontation is an ineffective way to address alcohol abuse and can even backfire.”

Hard to Reach Everyone Even proponents admit the panels don’t reach everyone. Experts say the panels may be less effective in persuading drunk drivers with multiple convictions, whose alcoholism overrides emotional appeals.

“We found it really hasn’t had that dramatic effect on repeat offenders because their problems run so much deeper,” says Regina Sobieski, assistant director for victim’s advocacy for the national headquarters of MADD in Dallas.

“[Many of] our clients need professional mental health care, not people whose lives have been personally affected by drinking and driving,” says Jessica Towne, an attorney who defends drunk drivers in Gwinnett County, Ga., which began the panels this April.

But even if the panels were utterly ineffective in curbing drunk driving, they may serve another purpose: catharsis for the victim. “They say it’s helpful to them,” MADD’s Sobieski says. “If they can stop one more person from hurting a family, they feel it’s all worth it.”