UK Police To Publicly Shame Drunk Drivers On Twitter This Christmas

An anonymous reader writes Sussex and Surrey police plan on fighting drunk driving with the help of twitter this Christmas. The police say that they will tweet details of accused intoxicated drivers, including: where, when, and who was stopped throughout December. From the article: "They're cruising the streets for embarrassing tweets. It's no secret that every year, the number of people driving under the influence of alcohol shoots up around Christmas. As part of its yearly crackdown, police in Sussex and Surrey are taking to Twitter to document the alcohol-related arrests they make on the road. Each snippet mentions where and when the motorist was pulled over, but also, more importantly, their name if they're eventually charged. Those who were stopped last year aren't getting off lightly either; officers are reportedly putting up posters to show exactly where motorists were caught over the limit."

Comments

Knee-jerk...

[mythosaz]

My knee-jerk reaction is to say, "good, fuck 'em."

Arrest records are public information, but we don't tweet out every one. Where do we set the line?

Re:Knee-jerk...

[AmiMoJo]

It's probably just leverage to "encourage" people to take a fine and points instead of contesting it. It will be similar to speeding accusations, where they accuse you but won't let you see any evidence, and give you the choice of just admitting it or going to court. Now they can throw in the added shame of being named on Twitter as encouragement.

Start with the drunks, no-one will stand up for them. These people really are scum... The police I mean.

Re:Knee-jerk...

[jeffmeden]

It's probably just more leverage to encourage people not to drive drunk.

Some people can live with the possibility of a delayed fine or suspension of license just fine - but couldn't bear to see their name tweeted badly in public.

Consequence is not usually front of mind for offenders like that, since there are already huge penalties for being caught driving drunk even just once (although the penalty for killing someone while doing the same is oddly light compared to, say, killing someone while robbing a bank) and would-be offenders rationalize it by telling themselves that almost everyone who does it does not get caught (which is true.) Ultimately, the tweets serve more as a constant reminder that people DO get caught regularly and so, hopefully a few who read the tweets will skew their cost/benefit judgement since the perceived risk is higher, and opt to not drive drunk or not drink in the first place.

Re:Knee-jerk...

[FatLittleMonkey]

For starters, it's a record of the police's activity.

No, it's a selective record of what they want to release. There's no uniform reporting requirements, it's not an official record, it's solely at the discretion of the Met's own PR gimps.

They are not going to tweet anything that embarrasses the Met, nor anyone who is protected, no insiders will be shamed. For DUI'd politicians, influential businessmen and off-duty cops, whether they end up on the name'n'shame roster will be purely a political decision - whether they are considered "friend" or "foe". Similarly, if some researcher or NGO uses the Twitter feed to show, for example, a statistical bias in arrests, then from then on the PR gimps compiling the Twitter feed will simply filter the cases to fit whatever "balance" is deemed acceptable to their higher-ups (note: doing nothing to change the actual target rates).

You either make it an official record of every qualifying incident, at a central .gov.uk site (not using a social "play" site like Twitter or Facebook), where reporting conforms to uniform requirements and there are set legal and civil penalties for misuse of the register, or you do none of it.

Selective reporting is inherently unsound.

Slander?

[sdguero]

An arrest is not the same as a conviction. IANAL but I think this would be slander (and the police could be sued in civil court) if this happened in the USA.

There's no point in shame

[quietwalker]

I know it feels good for the public at large, feels like karmic justice, but it doesn't hinder offenders.

Having done a good deal of research into crime and punishment, it turns out that shaming punishments have no statistical impact on the chance they'll re-offend. Anyone who is even briefly ostracized from society will be at least as likely to turn to alcohol or drugs as they were before, and other potential impacts like losing their job or positions of respect further worsen the odds of recovery.

What does work for DUI cases is to provide access to rehab clinics followed by support organizations, though apparently not any of the -anonymous ones like AA or NA, which have a worse-than-nothing recidivism rate.

Elapsed time to this becoming a contest...

[Sir Realist]

3.2 seconds.

Idiots who are rich enough to afford the ticket will probably take it as a badge of honor, and/or vie for getting pulled over in the weirdest places.

I remember when they put breathalyzers in Australian pubs so people could check if they were legal to drive home... and then had to take them out again when people started having contests to see who could blow the highest BA levels before passing out.

Will there really be any influence on behaviour?

[CohibaVancouver]

Is it just me, or have we now reached the point where people who drive drunk just aren't affected by 'external influences?'

Threat of a large fine doesn't stop them, nor does threat of jail, threat of loss of driving privileges or threat of loss of their vehicle.

Threat that they might injure or kill others, themselves or passengers doesn't influence their behaviour either.

So sure, embarrass them with a tweet, but will the risk of embarrassment really decrease drunks on the road? I think not...

Re:Accused?

[ihtoit]

actually, there is a lot. If you're having a hyperglycaemic episode, for instance - actone on the breath due to ketoacidosis causes false positives. Challenge in court and beat a BAC if you're diabetic. You're welcome.