Harsher criminal penalties not the right solution to drunken driving.

Byline: GUEST VIEWPOINT By Arwen Bird For The Register-Guard

In the 12 years since being paralyzed in a crash caused by a man convicted of drunken driving, one thing I've come to appreciate is that not all crime victims think or feel the same.

While my heart goes out to Anne and Bruce Pratt for the loss of their son, I believe that the solutions that they endorsed in their Sept. 27 guest viewpoint, "On drunken driving bills, lawmakers swerve," are not going to work to prevent driving under the influence or the harm it causes.

The allegations made in the column by the Pratts and Crime Victims United that House Bill 2828 failed because some legislators were `readily at hand to speak up for criminals,' or because other legislators were under the influence of alcohol, are completely misleading.

As a member of Crime Survivors for Community Safety, a program of the Western Prison Project, my colleagues and I made many more than 63 trips to the Legislature to advocate for policies that we believe will help survivors and improve our criminal justice system. Not all of what we wanted was passed, but that is how things work in Salem.

The reality is that this legislation failed because it was expensive, shortsighted and wouldn't have done anything to prevent the likelihood of future injuries or deaths from driving under influence of intoxicants.

The thinking behind HB 2828 is based on an eye for an eye - if you hurt or kill someone, you should be locked up for the rest of your life (25 years, under the Pratts' proposal).

To apply that logic on a personal level, the sentence for the man who paralyzed me would be paralysis. This analogy demonstrates how ridiculous and expensive this line of thinking is.

The Department of Corrections reports that it costs close to $30,000 a year to incarcerate an adult prisoner. It doesn't make good grounds for a way to live your life, and it certainly doesn't work when shaping public policy.

People choose to drink and drive for complex reasons. Alcohol and drug abuse is a disease of addiction, and the threat of lengthy incarceration does not prevent drunken drivers from getting behind the wheel. A large and growing body of research points to the need for multifaceted approaches to addiction and crimes related to this disease.

Combining therapy (to change people's behavior) with drug and alcohol treatment and job skills training helps give people more life choices. When people with this disease can address the roots causes of their addiction, they make better and less harmful choices in the future. This is true accountability - holding people responsible for the harm they have caused in ways that work to ensure that they will not make the same decision again.

Instead, the Pratts and Crime Victims United seem to think that locking up people for a very long time and at great expense is the only answer. And anyone who promotes an alternative viewpoint can't be trusted, even when they offer proposals that are reasonable, just and affordable. What is lost in the discussion are the very real needs of survivors and communities.

At the same time that Crime Victims United and their supporters proposed these costly and ineffective solutions to DUII, the state has cut funding for victims' assistance and survivors' treatment.

Survivors like me want to know that the state is doing what it can to prevent future victimization. We also deserve the assurance that our needs will be met after we have been victimized.

Imagine what the state could do for survivors if we allocated even half of the resources we spend on prisons toward services for survivors of violence. Sadly, none of these proposals, especially the ones that expand mandatory sentencing laws, provide anything tangible for survivors.

I would like to propose a new value for our criminal justice system: "Never give up on people." Never give up on survivors who need assistance years after their victimization. Never give up on people dealing with addiction and who make choices that cause harm in the meantime.

This kind of thinking provides the energy and creativity needed to create comprehensive solutions that would end DUII and other violence. As someone who lives each day with the consequences of one man's choice to drink and drive, I won't give up the fight to prevent future harm.

I invite others to join me in the struggle to create true accountability and justice for survivors. But let's do it in a way that really works to prevent drunk driving and other kinds of crime.

The Legislature was right to reject HB 2828 and other proposals supported by CVU and the Pratts. A broader, more comprehensive approach is clearly needed.

Arwen Bird is a Justice Advocacy Fellow and member of Western Prison Project and its Crime Survivors for Community Safety program.