Citation

Dijksterhuis FPH. Blutalkohol 1975; 12(3): 181-191.

Copyright

(Copyright © 1975, International Committee on Alcohol, Drugs and Traffic Safety and Bund gegen Alkohol und Drogen im Straßenverkehr, Publisher Steintor Verlag)

DOI

unavailable

PMID

unavailable

Abstract

In this article the results have been presented of investigations on the specific preventive effect of more severe sentences and of a more humane type of execution of imprisonment on subjects convicted for drunken driving. In a group of 1674 subjects convicted for drunken driving in the northern part of the Netherlands between 1960 and 1964 the correlation between severity of sanctions and recidivism was -0.16. Keeping constant the influence of a total of 15 intervening background variables present in the criminal records of the subjects reduces the correlation coefficient to -0.03. These findings illustrate that severe punishment is not a useful means of fighting recidivism of drunken drivers. The recidivism rates of two matched groups each consisting of 76 subjects sent to prison for drunken driving were compared. One group was detained in a modern, half open prison especially meant for traffic offenders, the other group in a more traditional prison for all kind of offenders. In an interview two years after release 40 subjects of the first group and 33 subjects of the second group admitted that they had been driving under the influence of alcohol again in the past year. The difference in favour of the more traditional prison is not statistically significant. The effectiveness of the half open prison for traffic offenders differs from that of a more traditional prison. As long as imprisonment is given for drunken driving the more humane, half open prison should be preferred. But because more severe sanctions are not related to recidivism a new penal policy in which there is no place for the costly measure of imprisonment of people guilty of drunken driving has been proposed.

DWI