Davis County to combat DUIs online

FARMINGTON — By 8 a.m. Thursday, Davis County officers had already arrested three people for driving under the influence.

The county has the highest per capita rate of DUI-related crashes in Utah. Bountiful Police Chief Tom Ross and county leaders don't like it.

Repeat DUI offenders might not like one of the proposed solutions: An online registry listing those arrested multiple times for drinking and driving.

The Davis County Sheriff's Office and Bountiful Police Department gathered Thursday afternoon outside the Davis Justice Center to launch a campaign, dubbed Davis HELPS, aimed at cracking down on driving under the influence through an advertisement campaign and the registry of repeat DUI offenders.

A $2 million state grant to specifically combat drunken driving will fund the program, but the departments want to expand it to combat all types of impaired driving.

The proposed registry would include the name of anyone with two or more DUIs in the past three years, as well as their mug shot and blood-alcohol level. Repeat offenders may be searchable by zip code, but their address would be kept off the site, Ross said.

Not everyone supports the idea. Ross acknowledged that critics might call the registry an invasion of privacy or a public shaming.

"But I would hope that there is some stigma created in the public for repeat offenders," if that's what it takes to reduce drunken driving in Davis County, Ross said. Besides, all the proposed information is already public record.

New Mexico has a similar program, which allows citizens to look up offenders in a court registry and The Albuquerque Journal prints the name and face of anyone caught driving drunk. New Mexico reports at least a 4 percent decrease in fatalities since the registry's inception.

The proposed registry hasn't been finalized and won't go online until October or November. Davis HELPS is waiting to weigh public opinion of the registry before going ahead with it, said Brent Wilhite, spokesman for Davis HELPS. He said that if negativity toward the registry outnumbers its support by fall, it would not go online.

Officers made 1,700 DUI arrests in Davis County last year, Davis HELPS campaign spokesman Brandon Hatch told county leaders earlier this month.

As part of the Davis HELPS campaign, the Bountiful Police Department was also planning a checkpoint on 500 South throughout the weekend. During a checkpoint set up in Bountiful four months ago, police pulled over 12 drunken drivers in one night, Ross said.

He hopes that a strong public stigma against repeat offenders will encourage a smaller number during future checks.

E-MAIL: mmcfall@desnews.com