Why do judges routinely require that people convicted of a non alcohol related misdemeanor not consume alcohol?
It seems like overkill and nanny state to me.
The two times I’ve run across this (no, not me personally) was a friend who got caught having sex in a car and a guy I used to work with who got busted for inflating tips on credit card charges at a restaurant.
For minor offenses like these when the punishment is usually a few months of probabation, small fine, and maybe some community service, I can’t understand why someone over 21 would be restricted from consuming alcohol for a non alcohol offense. Sure, they can’t run out and get a DUI the next day, but obviously any criminal offense while on probabation would be a violation anyway.
The judge can set any condition he/she wants. They could say you couldn’t wear a blue shirt on Tuesdays if they wanted.
It’s a way to test if one is obeying the courts order. Drug/alcohol tests are easy to do. It’s a little hard to determine if you wore a blue shirt on Tuesday if you come into your probation agents office on Wednesday wearing a red one.
Probation is in lieu of jail. Not obeying the conditions of it, no matter how petty, is like flipping off the judge and begging for a cell.
The order usually is for absolute sobriety (no alcohol or drugs). Intoxication can lead to trouble. And many offenders were intoxicated when the offended, or have underlying substance abuse problems. So Absolute sobriety is almost always ordered for most cases. Everyone is dumped into the same boat. Don’t like it? Don’t commit the offense.
I think a lot of this stuff is boilerplate. For example, I have a client, a little old former Soviet grandmother, who was released from immigration detention with a monthly reporting requirement. Part of her release order involved promising not to associate with convicted felons. The woman had not been accused of, let alone convicted of, a criminal offense.
I kept visualizing a bunch of little old former Soviet ladies with walkers, hair dyed that typically improbable shade of burgundy, wearing ripped leather jackets, chain-smoking, and taunting passersby.
That doesn’t answer the question of WHY they do it, though. Yes, they CAN, obviously, but that doesn’t mean they should.
It’s usually just as hard to test if you drank on Tuesday if it’s now Wednesday. Anyone who isn’t completely careless and who doesn’t have such a severe drinking problem that they can’t go part of a day without drinking can easily still drink and not get caught, and many of them do just that, and everyone involves knows that and doesn’t really care. Rules that aren’t really expected to be followed just undermine the whole idea of rules.
It has already been mentioned that probation is in lieu of jailtime. It makes sense to me that some restrictions should be imposed on the individuals that limit some of their freedoms. People in jail cannot consume alcohol either. So a person who receives probation instead of jailtime isn’t “losing” his ability to drink, he is “gaining” a bunch of other freedoms that incarceration would have taken from him anyway.
I look at it as part of the punishment, not some lame attempt at preventing repeat offenses.
Are you sure it is the judge ordering that a person not consume alcohol? It would typically be the probation officer in places I have seen that sets those type of guidelines.
I’ve seen judges do it. It’s almost standard. The thought, probably, is that many non alcohol and drug related offenses have drug and alcohol components. When it seems really out of place, I’ve been able to get the judge to drop it.
That’s when I’ve seen judges do it as well. However, usually it’s an order to participate in AODA treatment- not a direct order from the judge not to consume alcohol ect. For other offenses that are neither related or triggered by any sort of drug/alcohol problem (which is what I understood the OP to be talking about), it is still a standard term of probation, which I have never seen lifted. Then again, about 98% of offenses do have some alcohol/drug component IME.
With over 70% of convicted felons having a history of substance abuse, requiring abstinence from mood-altering substances as a condition of not going to/staying in prison is hardly surprising, and makes for good public policy.
Of course I have patients (convicted felons all) who are so incensed by the requirement that they abstain that they refuse to agree to these requirements for early release, and opt to stay in prison longer, at a cost of $35K/year to the state taxpayers.
In most places, even if you serve an incarcerated sentence, you will still have a portion of your sentence to serve on probation. So basically, if it’s such a problem for someone to give up alcohol as opposed to being in prison, that’s a major red flag that they have an alcohol problem. At some point you will have to learn to live without alcohol in order to finish your sentence. It is really annoying to be on probation and not be able to drink; however, I’ve worked convicted sex offenders for a number of years and the no alcohol requirement is one of the easier rules to adapt your life to.
I was not aware that the court could put no alcohol conditions on sex offenders, but it doesn’t surprise me, as that is apparently a special class of crime which can be punished for life, even after doing the time. I am pretty sure most other convictions can be fulfilled by serving the full sentence, without any other conditions of release, though I am open to enlightenment.
Often, the full sentence is something like 10 years in prison, followed by 25 years of supervision. Break the supervision rules, and you can go back to prison. And the supervision rules generally include things like “don’t drink or do drugs. Or hit people without their permission.”
It depends a lot on the jurisdiction, crime, phase of the moon, etc. but very often people leaving prison are put under some type of community supervision for a while, and they should be, because leaving prison is a huge transition, and good supervision can help ease it.
But I completely agree that sex offenders are subject to all kinds of restrictions that would never be tolerated for any other group. The alcohol thing isn’t one of them though.
To clarify, I meant that the no alcohol provision is during probation. I would actually be interested to know if there are cases where such a provision could be applied after probation (and sex offenders do seem the most likely instance where it would be). Where I am, your full sentence includes either a term of probation, or a term of incarceration plus a term of probation. There is no direct release without probation. So those are the circumstances in which an offender would need to abide by a no-alcohol provision.
This is incorrect. In my 3 decades of working in the system almost all jail/prison time sentences are followed with some form of extended supervision afterwards.
In my experience, it’s not at all uncommon for someone convicted of a non-drug or alcohol related offense to blame their crime on drug or alcohol use. For example, " I beat up my girlfriend because I was high" or " I stole that money to buy booze". I have no idea whether it was true or not-when they were being sent to a rehab program they frequently claimed they made it up hoping to avoid incarceration. But if I’m the judge ( or probation officer, parole officer etc) and someone claims that their apparently non-alcohol related crime is in fact due to alcohol use, I’m going to require that they don’t use alcohol.
Some can, some can’t . Depends on the state and the sentence structure. And there are always life sentences - in my state, you theoretically can avoid supervised release by staying in prison until you die, or you can get out and be supervised for until you die.