It’s no surprise that current DUI Law mandates that DUI punishments cause problems in your personal life in the short term. With punishments such as temporary loss of license, community service, fines, alcohol education and assessment, etc… it forces you to do some “rearranging” of your personal life.
But what isn’t always known by most is that the effects of DUI will last for years, even a decade. The punishments actually serve as a barrier from getting past the offense and moving on with your life for many years to come. This is because the initial punishments cause a domino effect of problems that can propagate through several years of someone’s life.
First, you’re forced to take a considerable amount of time off from work to perform your community service which usually involves picking up litter on the side of the highway. If you’re paid by the hour that’s a considerable loss of income! If you’re paid in salary there goes your whole vacation allotment for the entire year (if you haven’t used it up already). This is assuming that you even have a way to get to work since your license has been temporarily suspended. The irony of all of this is that with all of this commotion you’re likely to lose your job while you need money to pay all of the fines!
Potentially, you have someone who has either lost their job or has lost a considerable amount of income by not being able to attend employment. They are forced to pay the court fines and fees along with all of their other monthly bills on an even smaller income then they had before the offense. So what is happening is all of your monthly expenses are rapidly increasing but your income has either ceased to exist or significantly decreased.
If they lost their job due to the DUI then they now face the challenge of trying to find a new job to secure some income but don’t have a driver’s license for transportation and then also have to disclose on the job application that they have been convicted of a DUI. This makes finding any new work near impossible.
What does this do to someone’s mental state? It makes them very emotional and very unstable. Couple these feelings of anxiety with the animosity that a large percentage of people feel when they get a DUI. The animosity comes from the fact that a lot of people are wrongly accused and convicted of this offense because so much discretion is left up to the police officer during a dui stop. Low BAC laws and political pressure funnel more and more innocent people into the DUI system everyday.
What is the likelihood of a repeat offense when the punishments do this to a person? The person’s stress level and mental state has completely deteriorated and depression is setting in. They’re worrying about bankruptcy and future employment plans but at the same time are unable to help themselves because the courts have handicapped them.
Were all for punishments for people that break the rules but the punishment has to fit the crime. It has to be rehabilitative in nature if we actually want to fix the problem. The current punishments instigate repeat offenses and worsen the problem instead of fixing it.
For help visit http://www.duiprocess.com
About the Author
The Information Association, LLC publishes step-by-step instructions for those with DUI records or are arrested for DUI to clear their records and minimize the damage done to their personal lives at http://www.duiprocess.com