Tennessee sees approximately 12,150 DUI convictions per year.2 One in five of those convictions—approximately 2,430—is assumed to be a second offense.3 Every judge and attorney reading this article has seen that defendant before. If Tennessee adopts a 24/7 Sobriety Program,4 what impact would it have on that defendant?
A 24/7 Program asks one thing of that defendant—no alcohol intake—and checks for violations every day.5 Participants submit to a breathalyzer each morning and each evening.6 Those who pass keep their jobs, their driving privileges, and their freedom.7 Those who test positive face an immediate consequence; in Utah, eight hours in jail for the first violation.8 Later violations trigger longer jail stays and, eventually, program expulsion and reinstatement of the original sentence.9 Participants who cannot reach a testing site twice a day can wear a monitoring bracelet that measures alcohol levels every thirty minutes.10
The punishment is simple and deliberately modest: eight hours—not eight months.11 The theory behind the 24/7 Program, which researchers call “swift, certain, and modest sanctions,” is that certainty and speed of punishment are more effective deterrents than punishment severity.12 A punishment that may arrive months from now is an abstraction, and defendants discount abstractions.13 A consequence that arrives the same day is tangible.14 It helps to compare the 24/7 Program to an ignition interlock when analyzing deterrence. An interlock tells the defendant they cannot drink and drive;15 a 24/7 Program tells the defendant they cannot drink… period!16
Tennessee has twice asked, “Does it work?”17 In 2016, H.B. 2098 would have made total abstinence a condition of bond for anyone charged with a DUI who had a prior DUI conviction within ten years, or with certain serious vehicular offenses.18 Defendants would have been tested twice daily through the sheriff, and a blood alcohol concentration above 0.02 percent would have meant immediate custody and court review within twenty-four hours.19 A subsequent amendment would have replaced the testing with a monitoring bracelet and let indigent defendants draw up to $200 a month from a DUI Monitoring Fund.20 In 2021, S.B. 1291 proposed a statewide program run by the attorney general’s office, with counties opting in.21 Notably, both bills failed.22
So, why should Tennessee consider the 24/7 Program again?
The strongest evidence comes from South Dakota, where repeat DUI arrests fell 12 percent.23 First-time DUI arrests did not change in any statistically significant way.24 Among those defendants arrested for a second or third DUI, participation cut the probability of rearrest or probation revocation within twelve months by 13.7 percentage points, a 49 percent drop relative to nonparticipants.25 In Montana, second-offense participants had substantially fewer one-year DUI rearrests, even after accounting for differences from nonparticipants.26 NHTSA counts 24/7 Programs or pilots in fourteen states,27 and some states, such as Washington, have pattern guilty plea instructions for program defendants.28
Which offenders belong in the program? Utah’s program, piloted in Weber County in 2017, and the Legislature authorized a statewide program in 2021.29 Utah reports more than 1,400 participants and 99.5 percent compliance, by its own count.30 Because the measured effect was among repeat offenders, not first offenders, Tennessee’s program could focus on repeat DUI offenders.31
What are the program costs? Utah runs on an offender-pay model: $2 a test, or $10 a day for a monitoring bracelet, plus a $30 entry fee, while counties supply
staff and facilities.32 Tennessee’s analysts estimated the 2016 bill would cost local governments over $1 million a year, with participant fees expected to cover it.33
Who facilitates the program? Utah has nineteen counties that facilitate the program, with ten additional counties that may order participants to an adjacent county.34 With 95 counties in Tennessee,35 Utah’s model provides a blueprint.36
When may the program be offered? Utah judges order the program at sentencing.37 Tennessee’s 2016 bill attached it to bond,38 and the 2021 bill allowed bond and probation.39 Whether to start before or after conviction should be settled before legislative drafting.40
The evidence supports fewer repeat arrests among the roughly 2,400 second offenders Tennessee is assumed to see each year, if run akin to South Dakota and Montana programs.41 No Tennessee program has been studied, so any Tennessee number is a projection.42
For the defense, it is a way for clients to keep their jobs and driving privileges while, every day, proving their sobriety.43 For prosecutors, it holds the line between a conviction and a repeat offense. For judges, it shows within a day whether it is working. Whether Tennessee implements a 24/7 Program is for others to decide, but the question has been asked twice, and the research has now had time to answer.
[1]J.D. Candidate, May 2027, Lincoln Memorial University Duncan School of Law.
[1]Tenn. Gen. Assemb. Fiscal Rev. Comm., Fiscal Note, S.B. 1232/H.B. 1346 (Corrected), 114th Gen. Assemb. (Mar. 12, 2025) (first- through third-offense convictions).
[1] Id.
[1]See 23 U.S.C. § 405(d)(7)(A) (defining “24-7 sobriety program”).
[1]Utah Highway Safety Off., 24/7 Sobriety Program, https://highwaysafety.utah.gov/24-7-sobriety-program/ (last visited Oct. 12, 2026).
[1]Id.; accord City of Helena v. Heppner, 341 P.3d 640, 643 (Mont. 2015).
[1]Utah Highway Safety Off., supra note 5.
[1]Id.
[1]Id.
[1]Id.
[1]Id.
[1]Id.
[1]Id.
[1]Nat’l Highway Traffic Safety Admin., Alcohol Ignition Interlocks, in Countermeasures That Work, https://www.nhtsa.gov/book/countermeasures-that-work/alcohol-impaired-driving/countermeasures/other-strategies-behavior-2 (last visited Oct. 12, 2026).
[1]Utah Highway Safety Off., supra note 5.
[1]H.B. 2098, 109th Gen. Assemb. (Tenn. 2016); S.B. 1291, 112th Gen. Assemb. (Tenn. 2021).
[1]H.B. 2098 § 2 (proposed Tenn. Code Ann. § 40-11-153(a)–(b)).
[1]Id. (proposed Tenn. Code Ann. § 40-11-153(c)–(d)).
[1]Tenn. Gen. Assemb. Fiscal Rev. Comm., Fiscal Memorandum, H.B. 2098/S.B. 2444, 109th Gen. Assemb. (Mar. 21, 2016).
[1]S.B. 1291 § 1 (proposed Tenn. Code Ann. §§ 8-6-501, -503).
[1]See H.B. 2098 (LexisNexis status “FAILED”) (last visited Sept. 17, 2026); S.B. 1291 (same).
[1]Kilmer et al., supra note 12.
[1]Id.
[1]Beau Kilmer & Greg Midgette, Criminal Deterrence: Evidence from an Individual-Level Analysis of 24/7 Sobriety, 39 J. Pol’y Analysis & Mgmt. 801, 801 (2020).
[1]Greg Midgette & Beau Kilmer, Can Novel “Swift-Certain-Fair” Programs Work Outside of Pioneering Jurisdictions? An Analysis of 24/7 Sobriety in Montana, USA, 116 Addiction 3381, 3381 (2021).
[1]Nat’l Highway Traffic Safety Admin., DWI Offender Monitoring, in Countermeasures That Work, https://www.nhtsa.gov/book/countermeasures-that-work/alcohol-impaired-driving/countermeasures/other-strategies-behavior-6 (last visited Oct. 12, 2026).
[1]See, e.g., In re Suggested Amends. to CrRLJ 4.2, No. 25700-A-1427, 2022 Wash. LEXIS 319, at *10 (Wash. June 9, 2022).
[1]Utah Highway Safety Off., supra note 5.
[1]Id.
[1] Kilmer et al., supra note 12; Kilmer & Midgette, supra note 25.
[1]Utah Highway Safety Off., supra note 5.
[1]Tenn. Gen. Assemb. Fiscal Rev. Comm., Fiscal Note, H.B. 2098/S.B. 2444, 109th Gen. Assemb. (Mar. 4, 2016).
[1] Utah Highway Safety Off., supra note 5.
[1]Tenn. Dep’t of Transp., County Outline Map, https://tn.gov/tdot/about/county-outline-map.html (last visited Oct. 12, 2026).
[1]Cf. Utah Highway Safety Off., supra note 5.
[1]Id.
[1]H.B. 2098 §§ 1–2.
[1]S.B. 1291 § 1 (proposed Tenn. Code Ann. §§ 8-6-504, -505).
[1]See, e.g., State v. Biteler, 29 N.W.3d 894, 897 (S.D. 2025).
[1]See supra notes 23, 25–26; Fiscal Rev. Comm., supra note 2.
[1]See supra note 22.
[1]Id.
