History of IDA

In 2013, the American Probation and Parole Association (APPA), with support from the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA), completed the initial validation of the Impaired Driving Assessment (IDA) with a normative sample of 948 offenders sentenced to probation for a driving while impaired (DWI) offense. The IDA is a differential screening instrument that consists of 45 items across two components designed to estimate the risk for future impaired driving, provide preliminary guidelines for service needs, estimate the level of responsivity to supervision and services, and identify the degree to which traffic safety has been jeopardized among individuals convicted of a DWI offense.

The IDA has eight domains that assess a handful of major areas of impaired-driving recidivism: prior involvement in the justice system related to impaired driving, as well as in general; prior involvement with alcohol and/or other drugs; mental health and mood adjustment problems; and resistance to or non-compliance with justice system interventions.

In addition to the IDA itself, APPA developed a training curriculum that provides users with the knowledge, skills, and resources necessary to administer and use the IDA with impaired-driving clients. APPA is currently offering group training sessions that may be conducted either onsite in respective jurisdictions or at its Training Institutes.

APPA and NHTSA are continuing their long-standing partnership through the development of an online training course and a computerized version of the instrument in order to promote more widespread use of the IDA by courts and community supervision agencies. To date, over 500 individuals across 17 states have been trained on using the IDA with impaired-driving clients. Due to the success of the IDA tool, the James and Laura Arnold Foundation has also provided APPA funding to adapt the IDA tool for use in pretrial settings.