APPENDIX E: MADD Meeting Notes Tuesday, November 13, 2018
MADD Staff and National Board members invited 31 Summit attendees to a dinner meeting following the first day of the National Law Enforcement Impaired Driving Summit, funded outside of the NHTSA grant, representing a cross‐section of the overall Summit attendance based on expertise, associations, and partnership with MADD, for further discussion about how MADD can better collaborate with Law Enforcement and to invite ideas around a newly developing Law Enforcement Sub‐Committee within MADD’s National Board of Directors. The purpose of this sub‐committee will be to extract timely information from law enforcement in order to tell MADD what law enforcement needs from it so MADD’s Board of Directors may make decisions accordingly; as well, this sub‐ committee will provide for better law enforcement representation on MADD’s Board. Major issues and strategies discussed are detailed below: 1. Court Monitoring. The efficacy of MADD’s Court Monitoring program to hold the judicial system accountable, given that law enforcement officers often express frustration with the amount of time it takes to process DUI arrests, only for those cases to be dismissed or pled out. 2. Education and Awareness. a. A frequently cited problem was with decreased arrests because of displaced priorities from elected officials. Chiefs may lose their job over homicides but not over traffic enforcement, although traffic fatalities far exceed homicides. It was recommended that MADD utilize partnerships with law enforcement to get into meetings involving Police Chiefs as well as City Council, City Managers, and Mayors in order to help them see traffic safety and impaired driving as a higher priority and take a proactive approach. b. Chiefs and other law enforcement leadership need to be educated on the direct relationship between traffic enforcement and crime reduction. They may be allocating staffing to other crime reduction that could be used in traffic enforcement. MADD can play a key role in educating them on this proactive approach that saves lives. c. MADD can be instrumental in educating county commissioners, who fund over 3,000 elected Sheriffs across the country. Many of these Sheriffs do not have field or law enforcement experience but are independently elected. MADD can educate not only these Sheriffs but influence County Commissioners and Officers as well (National Association of County Officers and National Association of County Commissioners). d. Patrol officers also need to be educated and trained. The Chief may tell them to make DUI arrests, but they have to buy in; they often do not because 1) they do not know how to make the arrest, or 2) they think the DUI task force is handling it. ALL patrol officers should be involved in making drunk driving arrests, not just those on the task force. A MADD Roll Call Briefing Video could bring this message to patrol officers, perhaps through the Academy as well. e. Impaired driving is a crime and people don’t equate crime to traffic safety. Saving lives should be our number one job in law enforcement. It’s not a misdemeanor, it’s a felony prevention. There has to be an educational public campaign to help people understand what this means.
36
Made with FlippingBook flipbook maker