The Tulare County Probation Department, in partnership with the District Attorney’s Office, has obtained a grant from the Office of Traffic Safety to reduce the number of DUI related traffic fatalities and injuries in Tulare County.

Tulare County has too many alcohol-related injuries and deaths from traffic accidents. In 2006, 37 people died and another 279 were injured in alcohol-related collisions. In 2007, 30 people lost their lives and 253 were injured – all in traffic accidents related to alcohol.

To reduce these alarming statistics, the grant will allow the Probation Department to hire one Probation Officer and the District Attorney’s Office, one Deputy District Attorney. The Probation Officer will be able to supervise all felony DUI offenders and will establish a caseload of high-risk DUI probationers for intensive supervision. The Deputy District Attorney will prosecute all felony DUI offenders. The deputy will handle the case at all major stages of prosecution, from filing the case to court and refer surviving victims and families to a District Attorney Victim Advocate for assistance. The attorney and Probation officer will work together to provide training and develop multilingual DUI educational materials.

The District Attorney’s Office has experienced good results in the past with assigning one or more deputies to prosecute a particular type of crime. Not only do the deputies become the “experts”, but the cases benefit from having the dedicated attention of just one prosecutor. We look forward to working with the Probation Department over the next two years of this grant and are determined to meet the challenge of reducing alcohol-related traffic injuries and deaths in Tulare County.

For further information on this program and others offered through the Office of Traffic Safety, go to www.ots.ca.gov.

Funding for this program was provided by a grant from the California Office of Traffic Safety, through the National Highway Traffic
Safety Administration.