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Post by Big Lin on Jul 6, 2012 19:51:41 GMT
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Post by iamjumbo on Aug 11, 2012 9:54:29 GMT
eight years isn't much of a sentence for trying to kill two people. she'll be out in less than four
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Post by sadie1263 on Aug 11, 2012 17:34:32 GMT
I struggle with these type of cases. There should be a punishment.....but is jail really what they need.
The lady that caused my son's accident wasn't drunk....I believe she was exhausted and fell asleep.....going to jail would do nothing to fix our kids.......she has two children.....it would have devastated their lives.......she didn't have insurance but was hired by a company that did......so she walked with no financial impact or seemingly a thought to the damage she caused to our families.....what fixes that?
Maybe they should have to pay into a fund that can be used to help survivors..........I would like to see something positive.....or something that may have more of an impact.
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Post by Hunny on Aug 11, 2012 19:26:28 GMT
Jail is a lengthy ordeal which hardens and criminalizes people. But alcoholism is a sickness, so judges here generally give more like treatment than punishment for DUI's. They give probation, mandatory AA attendance, urine testing to know if they haven't ceased to drink as ordered, loss of license, fines, a requirement to pay handsomely to attend classes before getting their license back, and if it isn't their first offense they may never get it back- or have to have their car outfitted with equipment that requires spot sobriety tests. And depending on the number of offenses (if it's a 3rd or 4th time) they're imprisoned in their own home. And they do pay into a "victim-witness fund".
So you see, they can get pretty severe treatment for what they've done, without it actually involving jail. And the thing about it is it's all in the way of treatment, to try and solve the problem so it wont happen again.
The woman in the article, though, got jail time, not for DUI, but for hurting people while doing it. Well, ok, she's being held responsible for what happened, because she chose to drive drunk. I get it. But caging people is an abominable thing. Surely we could come up with a less savage way of dealing with problems than that.
Were I the judge, I wouldn't have sent her to jail; I'd have given her a ton of community service to do, a year's worth that would include working for victims. I'd give her a fine so hefty, she'd have to pay it over time. And she'd have to go to AA, and take spot urine tests for two years. No more partying that means. Face the people you hurt. Face the responsibilities of being part of society...But no caging. Because I just can't see how torturing people like that is still ok in this century. - And, given that we have more than 1% of our populace in jail yet crime still happens, well apparently it doesn't really work as a deterrent anyway.
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