chollaball.net

If something is to stay in the memory it must be burned in: only that which never ceases to hurt stays in the memory.

Man could never do without blood, torture, and sacrifices when he felt the need to create a memory for himself; the most dreadful sacrifices and pledges…all this has its origin in the instinct that realized that pain is the most powerful aid to mnemonics.

The severity of the penal code provides an especially significant measure of the degree of effort needed to overcome forgetfulness and to impose a few primitive demands of social existence.

–Friedrich Nietzsche, The Genealogy of Morals, 2nd essay, section 3

The other day G put her stuffed animal in the sink, after Beckie told her not to.  Then I told her not to, and she did it to another one.  So I scolded her and shrugged her off.  She threw a fit and cried with shame for 5-10 minutes.  Beckie tried to calm her, and that usually works but this time did not, until finally I told her it was ok just don’t do it again.  Then she chilled.

I knew this wait was making her upset, but its just like teaching her to climb the monkeybars, she has to take some hits to learn. Punishment to a child, where it can be infused with an emotional connection, can be tempered.  The feelings G has to the victim — in this case, me — internalizes the sense of wrong and enhances the impact of the punishment such that it need not be extreme.  A society, however, can only offer a conceptual and anonymous connection to the victims of most crimes.   For its punishments to be effective as revenge and deterrent, it must inculcate in the perpetrator an appreciation for an abstract wrong and an abstract victim.  It must replace emotions and empathy with common currencies – time, money, and most of all cruelty – to develop a notion of right and wrong.

The average person who has no experience with the criminal justice system and its role of building deterrents out of abstractions may be unmoved by the idea of penalties, and they do not understand their full severity until the awful weight of the rule of law is pressing down upon them.  By then the deterrent is only useful for future violations.  What remains is vengeance, and a brutal, blunt, yet effective means of establishing a morality for those who lack it.

I think of this every time I think of getting busted. I had no appreciation for Arizona’s status as the toughest state in the nation on DUI, the mandatory minimums, or their role in crafting a behavioral model for society. I think how minor my transgression really was, how close I was to home, how quiet the street was at midnight, how i was not reckless, and how I was cooperative and polite with the cops.

My lawyer wrote me: “Both Officers indicated that you were incredibly polite and both were impressed with how honest you were with them in every aspect of your case. Unfortunately, the City of Mesa prosecutors will not give any weight to this information.“

I wasn’t blowing a .20 and driving a boat home from the lake on a holiday weekend. I got caught by a fluke, no one was close to harmed, and had things been just a bit different I might have been let go. The cops kinda felt bad about busting me, were as easy on me as i was on them, and wished me well with my new daughter.  Even the state-approved instructor at my mandatory Traffic Survival School felt there should be a lesser-charge that reflects the actual danger posed by my infraction.

Singular, monolithic, uncompromising.

It seems unfair, overkill, and impossible to separate the motivations for reform and revenge from the cash cow its become.  But it is effective.  I will never drink and drive again.  The punishments are too severe to ever risk it, and their punitive effects go far beyond what is listed on paper.  Each one comes with so much overhead and bullshit that the reality of its impact far exceeds its description.  My punishments, in no particular order:

• Traffic Survival School – 8 hrs at the reasonable price of only $50.  At least the instructor was low-key, and acknowledged that he was trying to teach us a few things while paying his own bills.  The 8 hrs did not include research, travel, phone calls, follow up, and carrying the certificate with me in the car due to the very real fear that the DMV will not have properly processed my paperwork.

• 30 Days Suspended License, 60 Days Restricted – Thank gawd my suspension started at the end of April instead of the end of June, since I was on my bike so much I came to hate it.  The commuter became my ride of choice while the Heckler’s tires went flat and my participation in the South Mountain Park Steward Program waned.  My knees ached, my back was sore, and I was unable to get to regular yoga classes or my chiropractor.  My license is also maxed out on points for 2 years, so any minor moving violation during that window and I’m handed another suspension for 3-12 months.  There are fees to reinstate your license, which are about $50 to the current best of my knowledge.  Who knows?  Announcements from the DMV for every step of the process, all of which have been confusing, dense, and stressful to wonder if they are being properly interpreted.  After my conviction, I received another notice that my license was being suspended, requiring a panicked phone call with long hold times to get clarification that the DMV had just made a mistake on this one triggered by Mesa’s resolution to my case, though no written clarification  from the DMV ever came. to me    All steps involve hoops to complete, and you have very little guarantee that what you are being told and what you expect to happen is actually happening in a timely manner.  I rode my bike to the DMV after my 30 days were up to get my restricted license enabled, only to find the next day that they had automatically mailed it to me anyway.  Its the ultimate bureaucracy, and you are at its mercy.  This is going to continue for years as I fulfill reporting requirements for the interlock.   If you get caught out of compliance, the fault is completely yours as the DMV has no auditing and no accountability unless you get a lawyer to an administrative hearing.  All of which again puts the burden back on me to follow up and confirm every requirement.   The only silver lining is that the DMV is quite good at handling this since they do it so often.  What none of this can describe is how it took away from me my precious mornings with Genevieve, for awhile my love of my bikes, and my ability to contribute to our household.  The few attempts I made to go shopping with the bike trailer were hardly worth the effort, and only Beckie’s infinite patience and empathy from having her own brushes with the law many years ago made this bearable.

• Interlock for 1 year – It will cost about $1k for a year’s rental and maintenance.  Monthly trips for calibration of my device will be required, and I will have to ensure proper reporting back to the DMV is occurring.  These people have thus far been very friendly, realizing what a fine line there is  separating them from being a target of your anger.  Its actually not their fault – they are just supplying a state-created demand.  None of which will help me if the item gets stolen out of my car and I have to deal with reinstallation and new reporting.  The upside – who wants to steal a car with an interlock? The unit is also not foolproof – mouthwash could trigger it, a ripe banana could trigger it, and about 5 positives will lock it out and require a rescue from the agency to come get my car running.  Its not intended to be a BAC tester, its intended to be a BAC preventer.  There is also the possibility that anyone but me driving the car will actually be committing a crime, but neither the DMV nor the interlock company could confirm this info that I got from my Traffic School Instructor.  So for a year every time I start the car I will have to rinse my mouth with cool water and suck on a plastic dick, hunched down so none of my neighbors or co-workers see me.  And about every 20 minutes driving I will have to blow into it again.  You’d think I’d get a break on insurance that first year, cause there is no possible way I can drink and drive, but that won’t happen.  I bought an extra license before the suspension came, so when I need to present ID to anyone but a cop  I won’t have to deal with the humiliation of it saying INTERLOCK in bold letters.

• Jail Time – you pay for your own Tent City stay.  There is an annoying amount of travel and processing for your bid, and if you have to come and go for work furloughs, I can’t imagine how your life is anything other than work and jail and back again.  My 24 hrs stay required about 6 additional hours of bullshit and abuse.

• DUI lawyer -I’ve paid about 3k, and I really am not sure I got any benefit out of it.  Would you have gone it alone? At least I got 1% back on my credit card.

• The paperwork and the courts – I’ve made probably 10 trips downtown to file for paperwork, pick up my paperwork, pick up the rest of my paperwork cause they willingly deliver it to you piecemeal though it does no good until all reports from the cops and the lab are assembled into one package.  Appearances in courts are mandatory for the defendant even if your lawyer is filing for a sure-to-be-approved continuance, since the courts specifically seek to inconvenience the defendants such that their lawyers will not file frivolous motions.  Getting through the metal detectors at the West Mesa Municipal Court with bike shoes and bike tools is a chore, packing your suit into your camelback is another.  By the second trip i just wore khakis and a collared shirt, since my presentability had no bearing on the outcome anyway.

• Fines – Almost 2k.  $500 fine to support prisons, even though my class I misdemeanor specifically can not be punished by a prison term.

• Counseling – 2 screenings at $75 and $60, the first to get my license moved from suspended to restricted, where they did not tell me correctly if this service would also be good for my case with the City of Mesa, though I did ask. Mesa ordered me to go to another screening agency, where they grasped at any straws I offhandedly mentioned to justify my 36-hr assignment and their ~$400 class fees. When I called them on their embellishments to my history, and asked for the 16 hr minimum, they quickly shifted gears and said 1) my entire history was fair game, so a blackout I might have had 17 years ago in college was relevant to my 39-yr old attitudes, and 2) my one decision to drive warranted the 36 hrs. That is as many hours as a college course! What is 36 hrs of bullshit from a poorly-paid recovering alcoholic going to teach me that all the rest of these punishments hasn’t? Then they subcontracted me out to another agency where I paid another orientation fee of $35 before I actually start my 36 hrs. The above does not address the brainwashing and bullshit I’ve had to swallow thus far, only half way through my hours – it will be the subject of another post.  I spent the better part of a workday researching my health insurance’s requirements for getting this counseling covered, only to find out that the counseling Agency does not provide the type of paperwork the health insurance requires.  So according to the experts I have a problem, but they will not alleviate the effects of my problem by letting my health insurance pay for it!  $450 would cover a lot of cab rides.  I spent several more hours preparing a request for coverage with the documentation that I did have, and to my amazement health insurance picked up 80% of the tab after i sent them a 25 page fax of documents and receipts.

• Insurance – This cost me about $700 a year extra for 3 years, but at least the searching revealed some companies that will provide coverage for not significantly more than what I was paying previously.

• Police profiling – This you will never hear anyone admit to, except almost everyone in my counseling sessions including the counselors.  Cops will scan license plates and target those that come back with the registered owner having had a DUI.  So I’ve kept the hitch rack on the car for a year straight, figuring this minor civil offense will be worth a fine or two if it keeps cops from hassling me.   My driving behavior, my drinking behavior, have both undergone genuine and dramatic changes and I am a better citizen for it, but who knows if that will obscure the big fat scarlet target on my back.  Nothing will allay the paranoia I feel for at least 2 years til my license cools down.

• Shame, embarrassment, humiliation, or just running from confrontation like a dog that’s been beaten – About 5 of my friends knew about this initially, and without their kind words and positive reinforcement I would have surely sunk into depression.  I hide my dirty little secret from my coworkers, my neighbors, my family.  According to the counselors 1 in 4 people in AZ will receive a DUI – 1 in 4 – yet I still feel like a pariah.

Total of all this with insurance will be almost 10k. Every time I get mad, I struggle to point my anger back at myself:  I was the one who fucked up, no one else.  But its really hard to acknowledge one’s guilt and mistakes when the penalties and consequences are so out-of-line with the effects.  Nonetheless, what choice do I have?  The only good to come out of this is if it never happens again.

Would I be so motivated to never let this happen again if it only cost me 1k, some points on my license, and a 30-day suspension?  Honestly, no.  Would I have been motivated enough…yes, probably.  Having no car and 2 little kids for a month in summer in AZ, then paranoia that every time I do take them to daycare might be construed as a violation of my restricted license, can have quite an effect on your attitude.  And having had a sample, this very same punishment for a second offense would be more than enough to deter me.  As is, if this ever happens again, I’m looking at 30 days in jail, loss of license for a year, 30k in expenses and probably 2x all the above list.  Presently if I get any moving violation for 2 yrs I lose my license for 3-12 months. AZ’s no limit DUID laws and impaired to the slightest degree laws are the 9th circle, so obscure and impossible to imagine, so Kafka-esque, yet so frightening knowing that now my license plate is being scanned and profiled by any cop with nothing better to do.

One has only to look at our former codes of punishment to understand what effort it costs on this earth to breed a “nation of thinkers.”  — Friedrich Nietzsche