How Does Drunk Driving Affect The Criminal Justice System?

Introduction

Drinking causes cognitive impairment to the extent that individuals cannot make a correct judgment on various aspects. Excessive alcohol causes the heart muscles to relax and contract out of rhythm, which affects the amount of blood flowing into the brain, thereby causing visual impairment and reaction time. Driving under the influence of either alcohol or any other drug impairs one’s cognitive capability. For instance, marijuana and other drugs affect the brain’s functionality that eventually impacts one’s decisiveness. Drunk driving is a menace that continues to influence the world, even with the advent of strict laws and punitive measures imposed on various governments. The undesirable effects of driving under the influence

In particular, any response to a crime aims to deter the recurrence of such an act of the individual or others that may incline to act similarly (Keatley, Barsky, & Clarke, 2016). The formation of laws depends on experiences and perceived actions and behaviors of individuals acting contrary to the social expectations. Laws governing drunk driving are ineffective under poor criminal justice structures. The anticipation is that the fines and jail terms served by individuals due to driving under the influence would be a deterrence to the habit. However, the contrary is true as more people continue to engage in drunk driving (Alonso, Pastor, Montoro, & Esteban, 2015). Driving under the influence is a system-wide problem rather than an institutionalized one. Part of the problem lies with the community that appears to elevate alcohol consumption as a norm, and thus, any action taken while one is drunk seems to raise his/her social status. Therefore, an individual cannot purport that only the criminal justice system is to blame. Seeking a solution using the criminal justice system proves ineffective in curbing the menace. Driving under the influence remains a major problem on the roads because of the inefficiencies caused by the available

For example, the General Systems Theory provides a system-wide approach towards the analysis and management of crimes and the judicial system (Bernard, Paoline, & Pare, 2005). The General Systems Theory seeks to disprove skeptics’ assertion that the criminal justice system is a disconnected entity rather than a system. Mostly, the design of this theoretical model was to prove that inter-agency collaboration yields integration inherent in a system. The challenge with this model is that it focuses on processes cases rather than individuals. As noted in the background section, focusing on the institution has proven an ineffective way of addressing the menace of driving under the influence. The pressure in the criminal justice system is for the agents involved in the investigation and prosecution to close the cases as quickly as possible to avert huge backlogs (Stinson, Lliederbach, Brewer, & Todak, 2013). Resultantly, the social aspect of the problem remains unaddressed, which leads to acceleration rather than a deceleration of the problem. Correspondingly, the Social-control theories fail to avert driving under the influence (Lapham & Todd, 2012). This social-control model frames its response to drunk driving from a purely social context and neglecting the critical impetus drawn from the criminal justice system. Using brute force to enforce the law is ineffective because people resist such force by acting