The 16th Judicial Circuit in Kane County has launched a new specialty court as an alternative to sending non-violent DUI offenders to jail.
The court will focus on treatment to get to the root causes of why the offenders are abusing alcohol, while also having “intensive monitoring” and “rigorous supervision protocols,” officials said.
The DUI court is the fourth specialty court in the county, joining the mental health court, drug court and veterans court. It also makes Kane County the only county in Illinois to have four stand-alone treatment courts.
Kane County has seen an increase in drunken driving offenders in the county jail over the past few years, with a 40% increase in felony DUIs in the county from 2021 to 2022, officials said.
Kane County State’s Attorney Jamie Mosser said that officials had no other place to send the offenders, such as the drug court, because their drug of choice was alcohol.
“We were helping people in the jails through our Lighthouse Recovery program if their drug of choice was worse like heroin, but if it was just alcohol we weren’t providing them the same resources,” Mosser said, prompting her and clinical director of St. Charles-based Lighthouse Recovery Nate Lanthrum to research creating a specialty DUI court.
By simply housing DUI offenders in jail, they are not getting to the root cause of their addiction and not dealing with the trauma or issue that is causing them to drink, Mosser said.
Instead, Kane County Judge Rene Cruz will preside over the DUI treatment court which will focus on monitoring and treatment programs to address the underlying causes of drunken driving, officials said. Individuals taking part in the program will be those who have a high risk of getting a DUI again in the future and who aren’t able to function in society because of their substance abuse, like those alienated from families, without housing, jobs or income.
“They get recycled through our system and don’t get the transformative help that they need,” Cruz said. “Programs like this return lives and we see families reunited, people getting IDs for the first time, being hired for jobs for the first time.”
More Top Picks Downspouts
Participants will have weekly court appearances, home visits by a probation officer and supervised random drug tests while also being connected to treatment, resources to start a plan for housing if they don’t have it and any medical evaluations needed, officials said.
Mosser hopes that people who successfully graduate from the program will move on to a better future.
“Also, this will help our streets be safer,” Mosser said. “I know we are all fearful we will be driving with our family and be struck by a drunk driver. I hope we see our DUI numbers decrease because of this program.”
To start, the program will serve 20 people at a time, a number Mosser hopes to quickly expand because she said there are many more people out there who need help.
The court was awarded a $130,000 grant from the Illinois Department of Transportation which will help support treatment, training, education, drug testing supplies and a partial salary of the public defender assigned to the court.
Mosser thanked judges, prosecutors, defense attorneys, treatment providers, probation officers and law enforcement officials for collaborating together for the program.