PIERRE, S.D. (AP) – Twice a day for three years, Chris Mexican has showed up at the county jail in Pierre to blow into a tube and prove he hasn’t been drinking.
After several drunken driving convictions, it has allowed him to remain free and to become a better, more clearheaded father to his kids. The 43-year-old carpenter worries about losing the routine when he completes the program as early as Christmas Eve.
“If I do ever drink again, I get all that misery back. I get refunded that if I want, and this if I want,” Mexican said, motioning toward the locked building.
South Dakota’s 24-7 sobriety program has helped curb drunken driving and domestic violence, and some incentives for states that adopt the model were included in the $305 billion transportation law that President Barack Obama signed Friday.
The program offers those accused or convicted of an alcohol-related crime an alternative to jail. The provision in the highway law, pushed by U.S. Sen. John Thune, creates an incentive grant totaling about $18 million over four years for states that implement the sobriety program.