Licence suspension for non motoring offences

I was listening to the Serial podcast last night (S3E07 The snowball effect).
They were talking about Ohio State's suspension figures .

Here's a transcript of the section.

According to the BMV, the Ohio Bureau of Motor Vehicles, 1.1 million people in Ohio got their license suspended last year. That's a tenth of the state. And on average, the BMV says, people with suspensions don't just have one suspension, they have three on average. Because people keep driving. It can be hard not to. And every time you're caught driving on a suspended license, you get another suspension.


Here's how it works. I grew up in Ohio. Love Ohio. But it is a terrible place to try to function without being able to drive. Perhaps in part for that very reason, the state has learned that revoking someone's driver's license is a great way to get their attention for any number of things. Lapsed car insurance, open warrants, being late on child support, unexcused absences from school—there are more than forty different ways you can get your license suspended in Ohio

:eek:

Crazy figures

Edit- heres a link to the podcast and the transcript
https://serialpodcast.org/season-three/7/the-snowball-effect

EdgeCase

US approaches to law and order can be really over the top and draconian. The fact that 10% of the population is impacted by it would probably suggest is a disastrous policy.

Taking someone's driving licence for non driving safety offences could also remove their ability to work or even access basic services and groceries in a lot of places. So you could drive someone into poverty.

Del2005

EdgeCase wrote: »

Taking someone's driving licence for non driving safety offences could also remove their ability to work or even access basic services and groceries in a lot of places. So you could drive someone into poverty.

That's the point of punishment, commit an offence and it has repurcissions. No point in our system where the more you offend the better off you are.

FelaniaMump

Del2005 wrote: »

That's the point of punishment, commit an offence and it has repurcissions. No point in our system where the more you offend the better off you are.

But it should be proportionate and fair. If you have someone with a minor offence and force them into losing their job and onto the fast track to poverty, what good does that do anyone? It makes them far more likely to commit crime in future, not less. Arbitrary and unfair punishment is bad for society.

FelaniaMump

FelaniaMump wrote: »

But it should be proportionate and fair. If you have someone with a minor offence and force them into losing their job and onto the fast track to poverty, what good does that do anyone? It makes them far more likely to commit crime in future, not less. Arbitrary and unfair punishment is bad for society.

Yep,
hence the name of the episode "the snowball effect".

You always get the holier than thou crowd here on boards that have never comment a motoring offence in their entire lives:pac:

EdgeCase

It's just another example of disproportionate and over the top sentencing in the US.

They've a huge problem with this. I mean their incarceration rates are absolutely off the scale compared with any other country. You're talking between 6 and 8 times more people per capita in prison in the US than Western Europe and the crime rates are not lower as a result. They're even off the scale compared to authoritarian regimes like Russia and China.

If you go state by state it's even worse with some being as much as 15 times higher than Western Europe. The southern states tending to be far more extreme.

There's also a for profit motive for prisons as they're often privatised. So a bit like the way the institutions here in the mid 20th century looked for inmates to feed laundries and other business ventures, there's a similar motive over there to filling prisons.

They're using prison for all sorts of petty nonsense and also using very long sentences for relatively minor stuff.

bazz26

Disproportionate? Surely if the message hasn't gotten through by the time 1.1 million of them get suspended licenses then maybe it's not enough?

The likes of Uber are probably delighted though with the extra business.

mickdw

But they just keep driving so it's a silly failed policy.

FelaniaMump

bazz26 wrote: »

Disproportionate? Surely if the message hasn't gotten through by the time 1.1 million of them get suspended licenses then maybe it's not enough?

Yes, disproportionate. And its not that it hasn't got through, its that it doesn't work, and never will. If you suspend someones license but they have to drive to work and feed their kids, they will drive anyway. I would, you would, we all would. So its a useless punishment that only lead to them becoming serial offenders and the punishments escalating.
The day we start looking to the US for crime and punishment advice is the day we should all just give up.

EdgeCase

It's all fine and all if you're talking about suspending someone's licence in New York City or something where there are alternatives. It's not that much different in Ireland either if you live far enough from a city centre / work that you can't get there any other way. There are plenty of us who would be entirely unable to get to work or access a supermarket without a car.

In a state like Ohio isn't really a state with a lot of megacities with dense public transport, so this has huge impacts on not only the person but also their family and anyone dependent on them for transport.

Clearly a failed policy.

I mean imagine a scenario where you've a parent who gets sanctioned like this for missing a few days of school due to a dispute e.g. a kid who refuses to go or something like that due to bullying or just not wanting to go. I've seen that happen here.
Then they turn up in court and their driving licence is taken off them. Then they can't drive the kid to school and the whole thing snowballs and the next thing you know they're probably facing prison.

Spook_ie

EdgeCase wrote: »

US approaches to law and order can be really over the top and draconian. The fact that 10% of the population is impacted by it would probably suggest is a disastrous policy.

Taking someone's driving licence for non driving safety offences could also remove their ability to work or even access basic services and groceries in a lot of places. So you could drive someone into poverty.

No you couldn't, your license is suspended

Del2005

FelaniaMump wrote: »

But it should be proportionate and fair. If you have someone with a minor offence and force them into losing their job and onto the fast track to poverty, what good does that do anyone? It makes them far more likely to commit crime in future, not less. Arbitrary and unfair punishment is bad for society.

You don't loose your licence for a first minor offence, it gets suspended for a while. You loose your licence for repeatidly breaking the law.

FelaniaMump

Del2005 wrote: »

You don't loose your licence for a first minor offence, it gets suspended for a while. You loose your licence for repeatidly breaking the law.

Yes, thats the point. You get it suspended, then you drive anyway because you literally have no choice, and then you get repeated punishments until you lose it for good and then you are really ****ed.

If you lived somewhere where you couldn't get to work, or take your kids to school, or buy food, or see a dr or do anything without driving, what would you do if your license was suspended for an unrelated minor offence?

Del2005

FelaniaMump wrote: »

Yes, thats the point. You get it suspended, then you drive anyway because you literally have no choice, and then you get repeated punishments until you lose it for good and then you are really ****ed.

If you lived somewhere where you couldn't get to work, or take your kids to school, or buy food, or see a dr or do anything without driving, what would you do if your license was suspended for an unrelated minor offence?

If I relied on my licence to live then I wouldn't be risking it. The US uses licence endorsements because of the need to drive. There is no point in having a system with no consequences for committing crimes/misdemeanors, as can be seen from our "justice" system.

FelaniaMump

Del2005 wrote: »

If I relied on my licence to live then I wouldn't be risking it. The US uses licence endorsements because of the need to drive. There is no point in having a system with no consequences for committing crimes/misdemeanors, as can be seen from our "justice" system.

Nobody said there was, but the consequences should fit the crime and actually be workable. The point here is not whether you or anyone thinks this is a good or bad idea: its that it clearly does not work. It's not justice to cause hardship to the families of people committing minor infractions, but the main thing is the pointlessness of it all. IT does not work.

wonski

These judges in the US are actually funny, the way they are elected and the way they operate.

Came across few videos on youtube showing who they are and how they get where they are. You wouldn't trust them to pack your lunch, not to mention revoking your license or sending you to prison

There you go:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vj4xAlCWKg4

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rRvQtlxWlLs

What a great system it is

Guy:Incognito

EdgeCase wrote: »

I You're talking between 6 and 8 times more people per capita in prison in the US than Western Europe and the crime rates are not lower as a result. .

The rate of crimes committed by the actual criminals has to go down if they are in jail. The amount of criminals must be higher. How many are roaming the streets over there with triple digit convictions?