Public Shaming of DUI Offenders

We were recently alerted to a practice employed by the Nassau (NY) County PD over the last month that effectively amounts to a scarlet letter-like shaming of people accused of DUIs without due process. Hester Prynne has nothing on Lawrence W. Mulvey, Nassau Co.'s Commissioner of Police, and Thomas R. Suozzi, County Executive.

According to Newsday (NY), Nassau County PD is asking local news organizations to publish the names and mug shots of accused DUI offenders in an effort to deter others from getting behind the wheel drunk. The PD is also putting photos of the offenders on a website "Wall of Shame," which some organizations such as Newsday have copied. Here's what County Executive Suozzi has to say on the site:

We are sending a message in Nassau County – if you’ve been drinking and you decide to get behind the wheel of a car we're going to arrest you. By putting the names and photos of those who break the law by driving drunk onto our “Wall of Shame” we’re going to make sure that their friends neighbors and families know about it.

Does anyone else see a problem with this?

The key concept that Suozzi seems to be missing is that by putting the names and photos on his "Wall of Shame," he's acting as judge, jury and executioner all in one swoop before the accused have had a chance to defend themselves. Each of the DUI offenders that are posted on the Nassau County site were arrested (ostensibly based on evidence-based probable cause), but none have actually been convicted of any crime yet. Gregory N. Anagnostopolous? Nope. Dan Kerendi? Nope. Lisa Ziegler? Nope.

The Nassau County spokeswoman, Jennifer Kim, has this to say:

The county executive is not looking to ruin people's lives but to prevent exactly that from happening. We know that this is not a tactic that anyone has tried and we're hoping that it works and that it serves as a deterrent from drunk driving.

Public shaming is a tried-and-tested method as a deterrent, and although conventional wisdom may suggest that stigmatization like as used here is an effective deterrent to crime, the criminology academic literature shows otherwise. John Braithwaite writes in his influential book, Crime, Shame and Reintegration:

Branding on the cheek of offenders was abandoned in eighteenth-century England because it had 'not had its desired effect by deterring offenders from the further committing of crimes and offences, but, on the contrary, such offenders, being rendered thereby to be unfit to be entrusted in any service of employment to get their livelihood in any honest or lawful way, become the more desperate.' (Pike 1876: 280-81)

Along the same lines, Larry J. Siegel argues in his criminal text, Criminology:

As a specific deterrent, stigma is doomed to failure: people who suffer humiliation at the hands of the justice system are just as likely to 'reject their rejectors' by joining a deviant subculture of like-minded people who collectively resist social control.

Yet public officials think it works, and the trend appears to be taking hold. The Maricopa (AZ) County Attorney, Andrew Thomas, has also enacted a public shaming initiative of DUI offenders on his jurisdiction's website and even some local billboards.

Well, at least he waits until they're convicted of a crime before putting these offenders through public humiliation, which is more than we can say for the Nassau County PD.

Other Coverage:

Pajamas Media - You Can't Shame People Out of Driving Drunk
NY Times - A Starring Role for Drivers Who Drink
Total DUI - DUI Shame & Humiliation: Punishment, Deterrent or Embarrassment?