Is Drunk Driving a Serious Offense?

Abstract

If the belief that drunk drivers should be punished more severely is so pervasive, why has our criminal justice system failed to respond accordingly? There are at least two possible explanations. The first is a failure of nerve. Drunk drivers are usually white, middle- and upper-class males, who are respected members of the community. Our society may be reluctant to condemn as offenders these members of society. A second explanation for leniency is ambivalence about the seriousness of the offense itself, and thus about the severity of the punishment drunk drivers deserve. This article explores the second of these explanations. However, gradations of seriousness are matters of imprecise judgment, and there is no exact answer to how much punishment one deserves for a particular offense. The author identifies a number of grounds for concluding that drunk driving is not an especially serious offense.