Posted on February 19, 2008 by Kathy McManus in All, Driving, Internet, Law Comments (7)
Shame Game
If you want to send a message, the old saying goes, use Western Union.
In Arizona, authorities who want to send a message to drunk drivers are using public humiliation, by posting the drivers’ photos on a website and on huge highway billboards with this scarlet letter taunt: Drive Drunk…See Your Mug Shot Here.
Maricopa County Attorney Andrew Thomas is the driving force behind the shaming project. It’s sobering website stopduiaz.com, includes the names, mug shots, and blood alcohol levels of offenders, as well as stories about the victims they killed or harmed.
Does the tactic hold drunk drivers responsible for their actions, or hold them up to public ridicule?
“There are potential offenders who can be deterred by simple embarrassment or shaming,” Thomas told the Arizona Republic newspaper. Tackling drunk driving, he said, requires “new and effective ways.”
There’s no argument that drunk driving should not be tolerated. An average of 11 people die each week in Arizona in alcohol-related traffic accidents.
But critics question the practice of shaming people who have been punished by the judicial system. A spokeswoman for Mothers Against Drunk Driving praised the website for giving voice to victims, but objected to the aspect of public ridicule, saying “M.A.D.D. would not want to be involved in calling out offenders. We are interested in research and science-based activities proven to stop drunk driving.”
Tell us what you think—will public shaming teach other drivers to be more responsible? Should authorities attempt to shame thieves, drug dealers, crooked politicians and others into law-abiding, responsible citizens as well?
Comments (7)
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Not only DUI offenders
Personally I think drunk driving is bad but I don’t think we should hang posters of any sorts of the offenders – first of all, there are too many to hang. If we are to shame visually someone than we should show the faces of child molesters and perverts. These are the people that should be shamed and ridiculed.
A Deterrent?
I doubt this is a deterrent to drunk driving…when a drunk person gets behind the wheel, they think they are OK to drive. Judgement is impaired. If the thought of possibly killing someone doesn;t stop tem, would a billboard?
Bad Idea!!!
Mr. Thomas needs to leave his ego out of this. This billboard program is not going to stop an alcoholic from driving impaired. What it will do is completely humiliate the innocent families of these people. It could cause divorce or suicide or kids being picked on and bullied in school. Alcoholism is a disease. It needs to be treated like one.
You are SOOOOOO right!
Posting a bulletin with someone’s face just because they drove drunk is a good way to show how childish society is these day. Terrance you are SOOOOO, right! I agree with you 100%!
So one can kill and not be shamed like others?
Not all people made to register are child molesters or violent rapists and are publicly shamed daily on public registries. So why not drunk drivers who kill our children daily when they get behind the wheel? In Indiana there is one town which puts dead beat parents who owe child support on pizza box lids..so why stop there? Lets put fast drivers with speeding tickets on billboards or politicians who commit crimes or those who write bad checks…if we don’t watch it someday we will all be on some type of registry or billboard our names plastered to shame.
Maybe with a few changes
I actually went and checked out this website before I decided whether I agreed with it or not. Parts of it are fine. There’s a page with pictures of victims, although there were only two at the time I checked it, and this was the most touching page of all. The other cases are split up into felonies and misdemeanors. A lot of the people charged with felonies are only pictured as a cartoon in a jail cell, while all of the misdemeanors I checked had their actual pictures. The cases where someone was killed or severely injured and the defendant was sentenced to prison, sure put them on the website, but not on billboards. As far as the misdemeanors go, why not make a website for people who shoplift a $3 tube of lipstick, too! Granted, drunk driving and stealing makeup is nowhere near one and the same, and I don’t mean it as so. The website is actually not a bad idea, I just think they should be a little more selective as to the content that they include in it.
I question if it will work...however...
As mentioned in another comment on this page, when one’s judgment is impaired, whether or not they even will be shamed remains to be seen.
The “however” comes when I think about how one can be shamed when it is a matter of public record. I am sure that somewhere there is a website that allows me to see the men that ran Enron. Do they feel shame? Wasn’t that the whole point of releasing the movie “Enron: The Smartest Guys In The Room,” or, for that matter, “Sicko” or “Fahrenheit 911,” to bring shame onto the parties that the filmmakers believed should be shamed? I guess that rather than having authorities trying to shame the guilty they should be more concerned with prosecuting them.