The authors examined the public health impact of South Dakota’s 24/7 Sobriety Project, an innovative program requiring individuals arrested for or convicted of alcohol-involved offenses to submit to breathalyzer tests twice per day or wear a continuous alcohol monitoring bracelet. Those testing positive are subject to swift, certain, and modest sanctions.
The authors conducted differences-in-differences analyses comparing changes in arrests for driving while under the influence of alcohol (DUI), arrests for domestic violence, and traffic crashes in counties with the program to counties without the program. Between 2005 and 2010, more than 17 000 residents of South Dakota—including more than 10% of men aged 18 to 40 years in some counties—had participated in the 24/7 program. At the county level, the authors documented a 12% reduction in repeat DUI arrests (P = .023) and a 9% reduction in domestic violence arrests (P = .035) following adoption of the program. Evidence for traffic crashes was mixed. The analysis of data from the South Dakota Attorney General’s Office revealed that program participants were ordered to take approximately 3.7 million breathalyzer tests from 2005 to 2010 and that the pass rate exceeded 99% (99.3% of the tests were clean, 0.36% dirty, and 0.34% no shows). With inclusion of the results from continuous alcohol monitoring bracelets (worn by roughly 15% of participants), there were approximately 2.25 million days without a detected alcohol violation. These patterns suggest that the program may have been effective in reducing problem drinking among the target population. If 24/7 successfully reduces alcohol use among problem drinkers, we might expect improvements in alcohol-related public health outcomes following the establishment of the program. Although 24/7 has won national awards and is being implemented in other states, evidence to date of its effectiveness has been largely anecdotal and descriptive.18–20 The authors provide the first rigorous empirical evaluation of 24/7 across a range of public health outcomes by using a differences-in-differences research design that leverages the program’s phased implementation across counties using a 10-year county-month panel (January 2001–December 2010). In community supervision settings, frequent alcohol testing with swift, certain, and modest sanctions for violations can reduce problem drinking and improve public health outcomes. (Published abstract provided)