News Item
South St. Louis County DWI Court Earns Esteemed National Award

Posted: Thursday, June 7, 2018

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The National Association of Drug Court Professionals (NADCP) has awarded the prestigious DWI Court Leadership Award to South St. Louis County DWI Court team. The team received the award on June 2, at the 2018 NADCP National Conference in Houston, Texas. The award recognizes South St. Louis County DWI Court’s tireless efforts to expand treatment for felony DWI offenders and making the community a safer place for all citizens.
 
“The dedicated professionals on this team deserve recognition for the work they do and the outcomes the South St. Louis County DWI Court produces,” said James Eberspacher, NADCP National Center for DWI Courts Division Director. “They understand the disease of addiction; showing compassion to the inflicted coming into the justice system by assisting them to overcome the disease and live a meaningful life in recovery. This program is saving lives and making the community a safer place for everyone. The DWI Court Leadership Award is our way of thanking them for their passion and commitment to reforming the justice system in responding to impaired driving.”
 
The National Center for DWI Courts DWI Court Leadership Award is presented annually to individuals and programs that have made preeminent contributions to reducing impaired driving. Award recipients are selected by the DWI Court committee of the NADCP board of directors. The Honorable Shaun R. Floerke and DWI Court staff accepted the award on behalf of the DWI Court team.
“First, we are honored to be part of and witness to the hard work, dedication, and recovery of our amazing clients. Second, we get to do all of this as a team; listening to and learning from each other and bringing each person’s strengths and experiences to the table. It’s an honor to be recognized for our efforts and our clients’ outcomes,” said Judge Floerke.
 
NADCP is the premier training, membership, and advocacy organization for the treatment court model, which now includes more than 3,000 programs found in every state, four territories, and more than 20 countries. For two decades NADCP has been a leader in the justice reform movement at the international, national, state, and local levels. NADCP works to create and enhance treatment courts, including adult, juvenile, family, reentry, and tribal drug courts; DWI Courts; and Veterans Treatment Courts. NADCP and its divisions have trained more than 500,000 justice and treatment professionals in thousands of jurisdictions.
 
Adult Drug Courts, DWI Courts, Family Dependency Treatment Court, Juvenile Drug Court, Mental Health Court, and Veterans Court fall under the Treatment Court umbrella. Treatment Court strategies include extended probation, frequent appearances before a judge, frequent meetings with probation officers, staggered sentencing that breaks up jail time into segments and allows the participant to "earn" reductions in jail time with good behavior, and regular alcohol and other drug testing. When these strategies are implemented correctly, they improve public safety and save taxpayer dollars. Research shows that this approach has proven more effective than traditional court strategies at reducing repeat offenses.  A DWI (Driving While Impaired) Court is dedicated to changing the behavior of alcohol and other drug dependent offenders arrested for driving while impaired. The goal of DWI Court is to protect public safety by using the drug court model to address the root cause of impaired driving, alcohol and other drug problems, with the repeat offender as its primary target population.