e Woodbury County Board of Supervisors is planning to lobby Iowa lawmakers to adopt legislation that would help deal with jail overcrowding caused by incarcerating offenders guilty of multiple drunk driving offenses. Siouxland Public Media’s Mary Hartnett has more.
About two-thirds of Woodbury County Jail inmates are there for alcohol related offenses. The 24/7 program would keep them out of jail while submitting to two breathalyzer tests per day.
Board Chair Jeremy Taylor said at Tuesday night’s meeting that Governor Terry Branstad is focusing on reducing impaired driving in the upcoming legislative session. He said the program would help reduce the number of future jail inmates in Woodbury County.
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“ you can build and build and build, but until you get programmatic smart reforms to alleviate some of that jail population, then we are sort of back to square one.”
South Dakota has been using the program since 2005. The state says since then, there has been a 12 percent reduction in repeat DUI arrests. For Siouxland Public Media, I’m Mary Hartnett.