Kansas is looking to revamp their DUI Court system and MADD is all over this.

Kansas is looking for ways to improve its drunk driving laws and one of the options the state is looking at is a specialized court system that would only handle DUI cases.

The state’s DUI commission is looking at all kinds of options for strengthening DUI laws, but also make enforcement of the laws more uniform. DUI courts could be one way to do that, but not everyone is convinced it’s the right way to go.

For every DUI arrest, there’s the cost of jail, judges and juries. And when they get out of jail, about one third will do it again.

Owens chairs the Kansas DUI commission and said DUI courts would cut those costs by requiring treatment instead of jail. He said the Kansas treatment program has a more than 70 percent success rate.

“Because if we don’t do that, when they get out what do they do? They spent a year on the shelf and then come out and the first thing they do is celebrate being released, go back to drinking,” Owens said.

Okay. Treatment for repeat offenders sounds like it is a bigger deterrence than jail time. MADD must support this, right?

“What is that teaching them? I’ll just do this and I won’t have to go to jail,” Avis Lowe with Mothers Against Drunk Driving said.

A repeat drunk driver killed Lowe’s son 14 years ago. She doesn’t think treatment programs would have prevented it.

What happened to Ms. Lowe’s son is tragic. However this is not a valid reason to make blanket statements suggesting that treatment programs don’t work. According to State Senator Owens, the treatment programs have “more than 70 percent success rate”. Jail on the other hand? Less than 70 percent. So why does MADD insist on programs that are less successful?

“That’s not giving them punishment,” Lowe said. “What needs to happen all over is tougher DWI laws.”

Ah yes, punishment. Just as Chief Wiggim from “The Simpsons” once noted “the law is powerless to protect you, not punish you. Take her away boys.”