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Driving Under the Influence: Repeat Offenders

Driving Under the Influence: Repeat Offenders - Tuesday, May 6, 2008 at 6:38PM EST

Reported by: Andy Mehalshick
Tuesday, May 6, 2008 @ 06:38pm EST
The I-Team is on your side with a look at a growing problem: drunk driving and repeat offenders.

Some people are not getting the message. They’re getting arrested time and time again for D. U.I. One guy in Luzerne County has been arrested 8 times. They get behind the wheel boozed up and place your family at risk.

"Your life, in an instant, like that, your life changes because everything you loved everything you planned for, all your life is gone," said heartbroken Father Frank Yanelevius.

He lost his daughter, 25-year-old Sharon, to a drunk driver in 1995. He was driving 82 MPH in a 25 MPH zone. He never should have been behind the wheel in the first place. He was a repeat offender.

"They're born and they become your entire life, then all of a sudden its taken away I mean my daughter life was taken away my life and I are ashes in the rubble," he added.

Yanelevius has worked to toughen D. U.I. laws and travels the area speaking to young people. But still drunks are killing people. He says it’s time to get tougher. "Besides the stiffer penalties we need the local politicians to do something about this. It’s coming along, people have been coming along a little bit at a time, but Luzerne County is still losing 15 to 20 people due to D. U.I."

Jim McMonagle prosecutes D. U.I. cases in Luzerne County. He says the number of repeat offenders is growing. "About 16 percent of our cases last year just on trials were D. U.I. cases, just on trials were D. U.I. cases. So far this year it's running a little higher, about 28 percent, if you throw in A. R.D.'s and guilty pleas, our docket for any given year is at least a quarter D. U.I. offenses," he said.

As for repeat offenders, he doesn't have an exact number, but knows that he has seen more ‘frequent fliers.’ "If you have someone who is supposed to have gone through the treatment for first offense D. U.I. and get 6 months probation, and then sometimes a week later, months later on probation, they're getting another D. U.I., the treatment, either they didn't go or fell through the cracks or it wasn't effective," adds McMonagle.

He believes, it’s just not a big deal for some of these people. "There is a mindset in some people that it’s not a crime, it’s a social problem," he says.

Bu for those who have lost loved ones, it makes their pain hurt even more. "We just live with the grief knowing she's never going to be here again," says Yanelevius.

In Luzerne County about 5 percent of all drunk driving arrests are repeat offenders. State police announced this week they set a record for D. U.I. arrests last year, 15,583 people. That’s up 3 percent from the year before.
 


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