In Bayou George, Florida, a woman pulled over for suspected DUI has been arrested on additional charges, after she slipped out of police handcuffs as well as her clothes and allegedly assaulted a deputy following a car crash.

Samantha Wilson, a 22-year-old woman, was put in custody after she crashed her car at 4 p.m. on a Sunday. She was arrested when police suspected her of drunk driving, and that is when the real excitement began.
According to the NWF Daily News, notes from drunk driving police say that Wilson, whose hands were handcuffed in front of her, quickly slipped out of them the first time. Police re-handcuffed her, and put her in the front seat of a police cruiser.

But while highway patrol trooper Ken McNabb was putting her seatbelt on, Wilson, having once again freed herself from the handcuffs, punched him in the head.

McNabb was able to get the door of the cruiser closed, but Wilson escaped from her handcuffs again, and let herself out of the car. It was about then that she dropped her trousers and began to relieve herself next to the police vehicle. Her husband arrived soon after, pleading with her to stop urinating and pull her pants back up.

Wilson was restrained again and put back into a patrol car. On the way to the police station, according to McNabb, Wilson yelled and screamed, asking to see her husband while kicking at the windows behind the officer’s driver’s seat.

She then proceeded to remove her shoes and pants so that she was naked from the waist down. “She stated that she was going to urinate on my seats before launching into a shouting tirade,” said Deputy Randolph Grob.

Then Wilson, already on her way to jail on suspicion of DUI in Florida, began to slam the plexiglass divider with her handcuffs. She had taken them off again and put them on her fist as though they were a pair of brass knuckles.

The officer stopped the car because he thought Wilson would break through the glass, and when he opened the door to the back seat, she punched him in the nose again. He didn’t remove her from the car because he thought he might hurt her, so instead he was able to force the door closed and radio ahead to the police station to have a female officer ready for her arrival.

Once at the jail, officers had to forcibly remove her from the car amidst her continued punching.

This article gives an account of an evaluation of a programme for racially motivated offenders designed and run by probation staff in Merseyside. Originally a response to the 1998 Crime and Disorder Act, the programme was adapted in response to changed patterns of migration and racist hostility. A groupwork version of the programme was started in 2008, and this became a particular focus of the evaluation. Offenders who participated in both individual and group versions generally reported positive learning experiences, and appreciated the style and knowledge of the facilitators. The article argues that the content and delivery of the programme are in line with what research suggests should be helpful practice with this group of offenders, and that the programme is a positive example of skilled, creative practice.

One-to-One is a Home Office accredited, cognitive-behavioural programme used by a number of probation areas in England and Wales. A descriptive account is given here of its operation in West Mercia between 2002 and 2008, detailing programme structure; completion rates; participant feedback and staff responses; its role in meeting diversity goals for programme delivery including work with ‘racially motivated’ offences; re-offending outcomes; and its contribution to the development of staff careers. Some suggestions for the future are made.

Performance management targets and audit have exerted a powerful influence over probation practice for some time. This article traces their development and critically evaluates their effectiveness. Drawing on the findings of a study of the views of experienced probation practitioners it is argued that, whilst the monitoring and evaluation of practice is critical, audit and the measurement of organizational outputs alone are inadequate tools. Furthermore, they set in motion a train of unintended consequences which tend to undermine the effectiveness of practice. The distinction between audit and evaluation is explored and recommendations are made regarding approaches to the evaluation of probation practice.

In this piece about the future role of the probation service the author follows the Churchillian adage of looking back in order to go forward. He considers the experience of the service under the Labour Government, in particular the impact of the National Offender Management Service (NOMS) ‘project’, before going on to examine the intentions — good and bad — of the Coalition Government. Inevitably, it is necessary to ponder the likely substantial cuts to the probation service in line with the broader cuts to the public sector promised in the budget announcements but the author concludes by focusing on the potential opportunity for the service if a more progressive sentencing policy is pursued.

Montana has a history of a DUI culture that is not as critical of drunk driving offenses as other parts of the country. Recently, the state’s efforts to curb drunk driving have led to more stringent policy.

Now, the state’s Attorney General, Steve Bullock, has proposed the expansion of a pilot program that calls for repeat drunk driving offenders to submit to regular breath tests during their sentence. The program is known as the 24/7 Sobriety Project.

The 24/7 Sobriety Project essentially requires that repeat DUI offenders stay sober all day and all night long, for the duration of their sentence. Whoever fails a breath test would be jailed and have their bond revoked. The idea originated in South Dakota.

Under the program, anyone who is arrested for DUI more than once must take a breath test that measures blood alcohol content twice a day, according to the Great Falls Tribune.

Expanded DUI prevention efforts would also include harsher penalties for those convicted of driving with a blood alcohol content that is higher than .15. Such measures are already in place in most states in the U.S. Such a charge, as proposed, would be an aggravated DUI charge.

In addition to the strengthened DUI laws above, Attorney General Bullock would like to make penalties for refusing a breath test more harsh than they currently are.

The proposals will need approval from the state legislature, which is controlled by the Republican party at the moment. Republican Representative Steve Lavin already plans to sponsor the bill.

Lavin is a sergeant in the state’s highway patrol. He argued that the bill wouldn’t cost anything because those who are required to take the tests would pay for the process themselves. “I just don’t see any opposition to it,” he told the Tribune. “I’ve talked to quite a few of my comrades, and they seem to like it.”

Attorney General Bullock hopes for the necessary political support. “I’m hopeful that all three of them end up with broad bi-partisan support,” he said of the three parts of his proposal for expanded DUI penalties and requirements. “This problem is not a Democrat or a Republican issue. I think these three (proposals) are great parts of what can be done.”