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The funds used to treat repeat offenders for driving under the influence in Kansas have been cut by 70% by. Last the past fiscal year the state spent approximately $1.2 million to treat drivers convicted of their fourth Kansas DUI.

The decision to cut the funds comes after the passage of a new law requiring those with a third DUI conviction, rather than the fourth, to enter an alcohol treatment program. That is expected to add as many as 200 people to the rolls of those under treatment. Participants in the program may be required to pay some of the expenses. State lawmakers and officials hope local resources can fill in the gaps.

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Kansas City Police arrested nine motorists for allegedly driving under the influence during a five-hour DUI checkpoint that began Friday night on Independence Avenue.

The checkpoint started at 11 p.m. and lasted until 4 a.m. today. During that time police stopped a total of 447 vehicles.

In addition to the nine DUI arrests, two were arrested for driving on a suspended license. Four motorists received citations for hazardous moving violations, three for not wearing a seatbelt, one for endangering the welfare of a child and three for other traffic violations.

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While prosecutors can see previous DUI convictions, they have no way of seing DUI arrests or pending DUI cases. Or at least they’re not supposed to be able to. A new Kansas DUI bill is looking to change that.

The bill would require the state to compile a centralized database of driving records, which would include information about DUI arrests and pending cases as well as convictions, Ford County Terry Malone said Friday.

Malone said that information would be a useful tool for prosecutors handling DUI cases. “This is really a big step in the right direction,” he said.

The database is a key part of Senate Bill 378, aimed at overhauling Kansas’ drunk-driving laws. The bill would also create a special commission to recommend changes to the current laws, and it would make drunk driving a felony after a third conviction instead of the current four.

The bill also requires drivers with one, two or three drunk-driving convictions to enroll in a substance abuse treatment program.

Lawmakers are considering several bills designed to to crack down on drunk drivers, four months after a Wichita man killed a woman and her daughter while driving drunk. The case sparked widespread outrage and calls for reform.

“There are horrendous, horrendous crimes being committed with DUIs,” Sen. Jean Schodorf, a Wichita Republican who helped work on the bill, told the Globe on Friday. “This bill would, through a commission, attempt to rewrite the DUI laws and to increase treatment for No. 2 and 3. And hopefully, treatment will reduce the number of DUIs.”

Under SB 278, law enforcement agencies and courts would file electronic reports on DUI arrests and convictions with the state, which would compile the information in a centralized database. The reporting requirement would kick in whenever law enforcement officers make a drunk-driving arrest.

Prosecutors would have to request that information from the state before filing a DUI case.

If you have not been scared into not driving drunk and have been arrested for DUI contact a DUI lawyer right away.

The deaths of Claudia Mijares and her 4-year-old daughter in October — run down in a school crosswalk by a suspected drunken driver — horrified Aaron Jack. So a few days ago, the state representative from Andover introduced one of the toughest bills ever proposed in the Kansas Legislature to punish impaired drivers.

The Mijares’ deaths occurred, police said, at the hands of Gary Hammit, who had four DUI convictions on his record and faces trial Feb. 23. The deaths have inspired at least two bills that would stiffen prison penalties for drunken drivers and require the state to be more diligent about holding multiple offenders accountable.

“We have simply got to get these people off our roads,” said Jack, a Republican. His bill is set for a hearing Monday.

But some legislators, and treatment expert Harold Casey of Wichita, predict there might soon be many more drunken and drug-impaired drivers on the road even if legislators toughen penalties.

The reason: state budget cuts in the treatment programs that not only remove offenders from the road but also teach many of them to stay sober.

“What you’re going to see is more criminality, more people on the road, and jails and prisons more crowded because the judicial system won’t have as many treatment programs to send them to,” said Casey, the president of the Substance Abuse Center of Kansas and a member of the Kansas Substance Abuse Policy Board, which last year identified problems in the state’s anti-drunken-driving effort.

Unfortunately, Casey is right, said stateSen. Jean Schodorf, R-Wichita. Schodorf has helped Sen. Tim Owens, R-Overland Park, shape a new Senate DUI bill, separate from Jack’s bill, to be proposed this session.

“The corrections department is going to take a huge hit with program closures, and that brings up the question of safety with all those people back on the street,” Schodorf said. “So that raises the tough question for us in the Legislature: Do you try to improve the economy first? Or do you try to solve a problem like drunk driving, and get the statutes in place?”

Jack’s bill, which he co-sponsored with Rep. Lance Kinzer, R-Olathe, would among other things create a new crime in Kansas: aggravated drunken driving.

The bill includes higher penalties for DUI if aggravating factors are present: if drivers are found to be drunk at a blood alcohol level of .24, if they’re driving with suspended or revoked licenses, or if they have one or more passengers younger than 18.

Jack also wants to make it easier to convict people even if they refuse to take a breath or blood alcohol test. Upon refusal to take a test, a police officer would simply have to testify that the person arrested was impaired “even in the slightest degree.”

Jack’s bill already has one critic: Owens.

“I think his (Jack’s) bill is premature,” Owens said.

He’s glad Jack is proposing ideas, and hopes to meet with him and other House members intent on toughening DUI laws; but he said there’s no point in creating a new crime, “aggravated DUI,” if the law undergoes further revisions down the road.

A study of substance abusers by the Kansas Substance Abuse Policy Board found, among other things, that “there are at least 416 different and independent jurisdictions which may handle DUI offenders, 31 judicial districts and 385 municipal courts.”

The state’s hodge-podge methods of DUI justice are so widespread and so deep that they can’t be untangled and improved easily, Owens said.

It might take several legislative sessions to fix everything. But he’s adamant that the legislature do something.

“As I’ve said before, when you’re in the Legislature you can worry about fixing the law, or you can worry about the money, but you can’t concentrate on doing both at the same time.

“We need to fix the law. And we need to do it right.”

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According to the Kansas state board that studied how the Sunflower State prosecuted and punished drunk drivers, the Wichita Eagle reports:

The report, which was distributed to state legislators last month, criticized the state for:

• Having laws that carry the same maximum penalty — a year in jail — for a fourth-, fifth- or 10th-time DUI offender.

“If it’s the 14th or the fourth offense, the penalty is the same under our law,” Jennings said.

• Allowing for the prosecution of DUI cases in 416 jurisdictions — 31 state judicial districts and 385 municipal courts. Each jurisdiction sets standards for substance abuse treatment and education, the report said.
• Lacking a centralized database that prosecutors can tap into when researching a person’s DUI history.