Perpetrators of ACCIDENTS due to drunk driving always arouse public fury. Three such notorious cases are those of Yeh Kuan-heng (葉冠亨), nicknamed “Master Yeh” because of his wealthy background, British businessman Zain Dean and, most recently, a hostess who worked at the Golden Jaguar club in Taichung.
Some members of the public have proposed on the government’s “Join” public policy e-participation platform that repeat drunk-driving offenders should be punished by caning, and their proposal has gained enough supporters to be put on the agenda for official consideration.
As a psychiatrist, rather than starting from a human rights angle, I would like to discuss the effects of and problems with caning based on my medical knowledge and clinical experience.
People who think caning would be effective assume that offenders would be deterred by their fear of physical pain and injury, and by the psychological stigma associated with this kind of punishment. It could indeed have a deterrent effect on people who enjoy high social status and high incomes, but most drunk-driving offenders do not belong to such privileged social groups.
Statistics published by the Ministry of Justice in Volume 6, No. 2 of its semiannual Journal of Corrections, which was published in July, show that the majority of drunk drivers come from social groups that are not well-off.
Although more offenders are relatively poor, the media do not pay much attention to them because they are not seen as newsworthy.
The data show the most common reasons for drunk driving is people think they have not drunk much or that they only have a short drive home.
Some drivers are willing to take a chance because they think they will not get caught.
Another aspect to consider is the choice of punishment. In many cases, even if offenders are given a prison sentence of less than six months, which can be commuted to a fine, they still choose to serve time.
Perhaps they are thinking: “I don’t have money anyway, so I’ll take whatever punishment they give me.”
If so, it is debatable whether caning would have the hoped-for deterrent effect on people from this social group.
Another group of drunk-driving offenders are people with psychological problems who have difficulty dealing with stress or their emotions.
Rather than being punished, these people need to be referred to psychiatrists for treatment and given social, family and psychological support.
Differences between urban and rural areas should also be taken into account. In cities like Taipei, people can catch a bus or hop on the MRT anytime, but in Penghu County, for example, there are fewer buses especially at night, and bus routes do not pass many places, so many people can only return home by taking a taxi after drinking — a costly option for people with low incomes.
In combination with the chance-it mentality, these factors push up the number of drunk-driving offenses.
In successive policies, Taiwanese legislators have raised the criminal penalties for drunk driving significantly. Despite the changes, there were 52,604 prosecutions for drunk driving in 2011, 52,432 in 2012, 60,484 in 2013, 67,772 in 2014, 65,480 in 2015 and 62,959 last year. These figures clearly do not indicate a significant downward trend.
One result of increased penalties has been overcrowding in prisons. Imprisonment also makes offenders more isolated from society and more disadvantaged, making it even harder for them to quit drinking.
Caning is a form of corporal punishment that causes serious physical damage. Long-term alcohol consumption can damage the liver, (and blood vessels in the) heart and brain, and alcoholics’ bodies are more fragile than other people’s, so how would one assess whether they can withstand a punishment as physically injurious as caning?
Will every offender have to go to hospital for a health test and have a “certificate of suitability for caning” issued by the hospital? Will there have to be a doctor and first-aid team on hand throughout the caning procedure, just in case anything goes wrong?
The cost of treatment after caning will make matters even worse for the National Health Insurance (NHI) system, which is already heavily burdened. What if an unforeseeable result happens after caning, leading to the death or permanent disability of the offender? Who would be held responsible?
We should think long and hard lest we end up paying a huge social price in return for limited benefits.
Alcohol addiction, just like other forms of substance dependency, has long been medically proven to be a condition of the brain that requires treatment, but at present the NHI does not pay for such treatment, with the result that few alcoholics receive it.
As a policy response, the authorities could consider levying an alcohol surcharge or tax earmarked to fund treatment for alcohol dependency, which would simultaneously increase the cost of heavy drinking.
We also need to use health education and other educational avenues to correct mistaken ideas, such as the misconception that Paolyta-B and other such stimulant beverages are non-alcoholic, and to discourage the habit of swigging drinks bottoms-up, persuading other people to drink and so on.
We should provide more affordable public transport and encourage people to change their habits.
Lastly, we should incorporate therapeutic concepts into the Criminal Code to subject repeat offenders to mandatory treatment. Connecting courts, prisons, hospitals and communities to handle the problem of drunk driving together is the only way to get real results.
Liu Jun-chien is chief of the psychiatry department at Penghu Hospital.
Translated by Julian Clegg
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