It started off with a simple plan — take minor drunk driving cases out of court and instead rehabilitate the offenders.
This makes sense. As we have discussed, for most non-violent crimes, community based measures, such as diversion to Alternative Measures, are very effective in deterring people from offending again. With respect to impaired driving there may be an alcohol problem that needs to be addressed, but rarely is a criminal conviction the best way to ensure that the person does not repeat the behaviour.
This was the core idea that was the seed of the Immediate Roadside Prohibition scheme. The focus was on rehabilitation when the idea was first tossed around. But then things went sideways.
Back to our challenge: How would you deal with drunk drivers if you were the provincial government?
The Government was concerned that they would appear to be easing up on drunk drivers and that would not fly with the key lobby group. And then the police got involved. There are former police officers who are elected members of the BC Legislature, and the police in BC spend a good deal of time lobbying the Government. The police have great influence over this Government.
Ultimately the police were deeply involved in crafting the scheme. That is where the ridiculously inadequate method to collect and report evidence came in. For fear of lobbyists the focus switched from rehabilitation to over-the-top punishment based on bad evidence with no meaningful method of review. Harsh punishment became the mantra and rehabilitation became a footnote.
So the simple plan turned out to be a catastrophic failure. No one set out to create a scheme mirroring an Orwellian dystopia. They wanted to find a better, cheaper more humane way of dealing with drunk drivers. But it went off the rails. People felt that they were being treated unjustly and disrespectfully. And there are good reasons to not have confidence in the system.
Had the IRP scheme been permitted to continue as it was, it would have represented a dark turn for justice in BC.
Your Suggestions:
So far the thrust of most of the suggestions is more effective education. We agree. But then everyone who previously set out to design an education campaign wanted it to be effective. One can imagine a committee editing the ideas of the creative types. Sometimes when you start with a good idea, once it has been carried through it looks nothing like the idea you originally conceived. The IRP scheme is a good example.
One email suggested that everyone be required to take an oath to only drive while sober each time that we all renew our licenses. It seems simple and cheap. It may be effective. Many of us take that sort of thing very seriously and it might cause some people to think for a moment before getting behind the wheel.
Our view is that the most reasonable solution at hand is enforcement and rehabilitation. We will discuss this another day.