Sobriety activists push for alcohol law changes

According to many who deal with the problems of illegal drinking and alcohol abuse, Mississippi has a decent set of laws.

It recognizes the national standard of 0.08 percent blood alcohol content as the definition of drunk, it, it revokes driver licenses for driving under the influence, and makes a felony of drunk driving on the third offense, sooner than any of its neighboring states.

"I really think the laws that are in place are adequate," said James Moore, Lee County's prosecuting attorney. "There can be very stiff penalties, but there's also room to work with someone who has made a one-time stupid mistake."

In Oxford, though, increased law enforcement and even alcohol education hasn't gone far enough. The penchant of college students to violate alcohol laws - a nationwide problem - has prompted community leaders from the city, Lafayette County and the University of Mississippi to issue a joint resolution asking local legislators to sponsor laws that would allow stiffer penalties for underage drinking and driving under the influence.

One of the requests is jail time of 48 hours to two weeks for first-time DUI offenders.

"There are many states that require automatic jail sentences of two days, 10 days, two weeks or whatever," Mayor Richard Howorth said. "There are many misdemeanors in this state that require jail time for offenses that are far less dangerous than first-offense DUI."

Discussions about changes continue as the new school year looms. Last year, a campus police officer died after being dragged by a student accused of being under the influence of alcohol and drugs.

Another proposed change is a required driver's license suspension of six months to one year for first-time DUI, up from the current minimum of 90 days.

The local resolution also calls for stiffer penalties for the use of false identification.

"Anybody who deals with this issue can tell you how incredibly problematic the widespread use of false ID's is," Howorth said. The current $200 fine should be increased to $500, he said, with unspecified suspension of an offender's driver license.

The same penalty should apply to anyone who lends an ID to someone else, he said.

Mothers Against Drunk Driving, which lobbies for stiffer penalties for drunk drivers, has a longer wish list of legislative changes for Mississippi. Among them are enhanced DUI penalties if a child is in the vehicle, special penalties for habitual traffic offenders and bans on "happy hours" or drink specials that encourage heavy drinking. MADD also calls for statewide mandatory server training and registration of beer kegs, measures Oxford has enacted on a local basis.

MADD advocates that blood-alcohol contents of 0.15 percent or higher would apply extra restrictions on drivers, that hospitals be required to report the blood alcohol content of drivers involved in crashes and that legal BAC levels be lowered for repeat DUI offenders. It also calls for Mississippi to revoke current license plates for vehicles used in DUI offenses, enabling the offender's family members to use the vehicle with a new license plate. In repeat cases, the organization advocates seizure and sale of the offender's vehicle.

Joe Marshall Davis, Union County's prosecuting attorney, sees value in the measures being urged by Lafayette-Oxford-University officials.

"We don't see false IDs here," he said, noting that alcohol is illegal for people of any age in Union County. "But in a college town, I can see where they would have a problem, and I wouldn't have a problem with raising that penalty."

Given his preferences, though, Davis would emphasize community service for juvenile alcohol offenders. Such sanctions are allowable now but could be made mandatory, he said.

"The parents are paying the penalties," he said. "To me, the way you get through to a teenager is to embarrass them - to put them out there picking up trash on the side of the highway where they are seen by the community, and it's going to sink in a lot more with them than charging them a fine or spending eight hours in jail."

Oxford intends to follow that direction, too. It will increase its alcohol enforcement yet again this fall, along with a hope that community service will be a larger part of sentencing.

"We're going to have more officers, and they won't just be looking for drunk drivers," Howorth said. "They'll also be supervising the community service program, doing the server training and doing alcohol education in the schools."

Northeast Mississippi Daily Journal