"It's two weeks into my new appointment and I'm sitting there one morning and I'm looking at a sea of young faces," Cofield recalls. "At that moment I realized this was an epidemic, and I started wondering, 'How do I get them to take this seriously?' I had to get creative really quickly."
Days before, nearly 60 college students, all under the age of 21, mostly from the University of Hartford, had been ticketed or arrested on a variety of misdemeanor charges related to their presence at two Hartford nightclubs.
Most were cited for underage drinking, some also received charges of loitering, and all were now under Cofield's purview.
"It came to me as my own children got to be about 16, 17, that this has gone beyond normal experimentation," she said. "Underage drinking has risen to epic proportions and they are drinking to levels that are unsafe. That's a really scary problem from a parent's perspective."
That morning when faced with dozens of underage drinkers, Cofield could have enforced the standard penalties; pay the fine associated with the ticket and do some community service.
Instead, she took a different route.
"I made them stand up as a group and said, 'Look around you, this is the class picture of 2006,'" Cofield said. "And I know you're not just drinking, because if you're drinking at 18, you're also using marijuana. About 30 of the kids came forward and said they were."
That day she released the students after drug testing and issuing a return court appearance date that would buy her enough time to formulate a solid plan to allow the kids "to get it."
"We didn't have a curriculum for underage drinking. I had to call the president of the University of Hartford and tell him, 'I have 60 of your $40,000-a-year students in my courtroom and some of them may be going to jail today," Cofield said. "They were very cooperative. They have a $1 million grant to deal with underage drinking. We realized that everyone is working on this problem but no one is talking to each other about it."
During the course of the students' adjudication, Cofield required them to provide proof that their parents knew of their arrests. And she began to search the library for books that would provide teens with meaningful insight into binge drinking.
She and her court staff contacted every organization or speaker she could find that would provide an experience that kids would take to heart. She also arranged for the students, many of whom were education or social work majors, to do community service by working with kids at the Boys and Girls Club in Hartford rather than picking up trash or other such tasks.
"The books had to be gender specific because different things happen to girls when they get drunk than boys," Cofield said. "They face getting assaulted or waking up next to strangers while drunk."
"I talked to MADD, who had done presentations to the Judicial Branch," Cofield continues. "I looked at books, tapes, sought advice from the Governor's Prevention Council, found a wonderful speaker who was featured in Wally Lamb's book about the women at York (correctional facility in Niantic). I met with UH school officials; I even found someone who would speak on behalf of the city of Hartford and the city's concerns about its reputation and underage drinking."
On their return court date in October, Cofield assigned each student to read either "Smashed," a memoir of a teen girl's bout with alcoholism or "From Binge to Blackout," a mother and son's story of how alcohol can damage anyone's life.
Cofield said all had to write essays on their assigned books; "that either showed me how you fit into this book or how you are distinguishing yourself from it," that were to be read to the full courtroom. They also were required to attend a MADD victim impact panel, listen to guest speakers, test drug-free and do community service.
A month later, Cofield said no less than four deans from the University of Hartford showed up in court to hear the students' essays. Speaker Robin Cullen, featured in Wally Lamb's "Couldn't Keep It To Myself: Testimonies from our Imprisoned Sisters," told students of a friend's lovely wedding day.
"She described the most beautiful wedding; she painted the most beautiful picture of what a great day it was down to the last detail," Cofield said. "And then she explained how driving home drunk she instantly killed her best friend in a car accident. She told them that's the trophy you get for drunk driving, a slab of concrete. That's what my friend got."
Cofield said she also had to tearfully explain to students that one of the kids who was also arrested with them wouldn't be appearing that day - he had died in an alcohol-related accident when he smashed into a tree.
"We lost one," Cofield said. "That wasn't the lesson I wanted to teach them that day, but it happened. I'm doing this for my family but also for society. This could touch anyone. It's not going to end. That day the first young girl who read her essay brought everyone to tears. It was clear she got it. And her peers got it. That's what it's all about."
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