Field Evaluation of Jail Sanctions for DWI
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Summary
This study evaluates the impact of Tennessee’s mandatory two-day jail sanction for first-offense driving under the influence (DUI), which took effect in July 1982. Conducted under contract for the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA), the research aimed to assess the sanction’s effects on general deterrence, special deterrence (recidivism), and the operational functioning of the drinking-driver control system. The evaluation utilized a comprehensive case study design, analyzing statewide data from 1977 to 1986 and conducting specific case studies in Chattanooga and Nashville. To measure general deterrence, researchers analyzed fatal accident data using interrupted time-series methods. Tennessee served as the treatment state, while Alabama and Kentucky, which lacked mandatory jail penalties, served as control states. Due to the lack of reliable direct alcohol-related accident data, the study used nighttime single-vehicle fatal accidents as the primary surrogate measure. Statistical analyses, including linear and log-linear regression models, compared accident trends in Tennessee against the control states, adjusting for seasonal variations and economic factors such as unemployment. Additionally, the study assessed public awareness and self-reported behavior through two phases of surveys administered to driver license applicants by the Tennessee Department of Safety. The findings indicated that the mandatory jail sanction had no measurable effect on alcohol-related crashes. While initial visual inspections of time-series data suggested potential reductions in nighttime single-vehicle fatal accidents, rigorous statistical modeling revealed no significant correlation between the intervention and accident rates. Similar reductions in fatal accidents occurred in the control states, suggesting that broader economic or temporal trends, rather than the jail sanction, drove any observed changes. Specifically, unemployment rates showed a strong correlation with accident trends, confounding the isolation of the law's effect. Regarding recidivism, the study found that the jail sanction had an initial effect on reducing drunk-driving recidivism among convicted drivers. However, this special deterrent effect did not translate into a general deterrent effect on the broader driving population. The authors conclude that mandatory jail sanctions alone are insufficient for reducing alcohol-related crashes. They recommend that states exercise caution in adopting such measures without accompanying large-scale, continuing public information and education campaigns. The study highlights the importance of rigorous control state selection and the need to account for economic variables in traffic safety evaluations. Future testing of mandatory jail should be conducted in conjunction with robust public awareness initiatives to accurately measure any potential general deterrent effects.
Key finding
The mandatory jail sanction initially reduced drunk-driving recidivism in Tennessee but had no measurable effect on alcohol-related fatal accidents.
Methodology
mixed_methods
Provenance
The full processing record for this entry. Every stage of this paper's journey through the pipeline is logged — what ran, with which tool and model, how many attempts it took, and when it last completed. Discovered via bulk_ingest_rosap on 2026-05-23 (6 acquisition events logged).
| Stage | Outcome | Tool | Model | Prompt | Attempts | Completed |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| discover | success | rosap | — | — | 2 | 2026-05-23 |
| archive | success | — | — | — | 1 | 2026-05-23 |
| extract | success | cached | — | — | 2 | 2026-06-10 |
| clean | success | — | — | — | 1 | 2026-06-01 |
| chunk | success | — | — | — | 1 | 2026-06-01 |
| embed | success | — | — | — | 1 | 2026-06-02 |
| enrich | success | — | — | — | 1 | 2026-05-23 |
| promote | success | — | — | — | 1 | 2026-05-23 |
| summarize | success | llm | qwen3.6-27b-prismaquant | summ-v5 | 3 | 2026-06-10 |
| tag | success | vector_similarity | — | — | 19 | 2026-06-11 |
| verify | success | — | — | — | 2 | 2026-06-10 |
Summary generated by qwen3.6-27b-prismaquant on 2026-06-10; verification: verified.
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- Applied Guidance: countermeasure evaluation