Police and prosecutors admit that repeat drunken driving offenders are a growing problem for which they have no easy answers or solutions.
About one-third of the people arrested for drunken driving in Brown County this year have been convicted of the same offense, the Green Bay Press-Gazette reported Sunday.
“It is a continuing struggle that we’re going to have to deal with,” said Brown County District Atty. John Zakowski. “Drunk driving is a serious enough crime where the first time can be just as dangerous as the second or third. We need to look at what it is going to take for (people) to change their behavior, and then we might have the solution.”
A review of arrests for operating while intoxicated by Green Bay police this year shows that 38 percent of drivers had previous drunken driving convictions.
Of the 193 repeat offenders, 93 were cited for their second offense, 54 were arrested for their third offense and 27 were arrested for their fourth offense, the newspaper reported.
In some cases people were arrested for eighth, ninth and 11th offenses.
The Brown County Sheriff’s Department has arrested 143 first-time offenders and 69 repeat offenders this year.
