In the fiscal year ending June 2015, the Old Dominion suspended licenses of nearly 39,000 Virginians for drug convictions unrelated to driving. The practice is a relic dating back to 1991 and the war on drugs, and all but 12 states have abandoned it.
Suspending licenses for drug possession is just one facet of a widespread abuse, which we have highlighted on this blog, of depriving Virginians of their driving privileges. In just the first quarter of the current fiscal year, 10,900 Virginians lost their licenses for drug-related offenses, 20,700 for failure to pay court fines, and 8,000 for failure to pay child support, reports Frank Green in the Richmond Times-Dispatch today.
The irony of the suspended-licenses policy is that depriving Virginians of their right to drive narrows their options for getting to work and makes it more difficult to maintain the employment they need to pay the fines and child support. Estimates show that nearly three-quarters continue to drive illegally. Many get caught, and their court-related troubles compound. The practice has created a treadmill of indebtedness that keep hundreds of thousands of Virginians trapped in poverty.
A new rule quietly adopted by the Virginia Supreme Court, effective February, will require all courts to offer more flexible terms for paying off court fines. One option is to pay on a deferred or installment plan. Another is to assign people to community service.
Meanwhile, Sen. Adam P. Ebbin, D-Alexandria, has introduced a bill to the General Assembly that would halt the automatic stripping of drug offenders’ driver’s licenses — contingent upon written assurance from the U.S. Department of Transportation that Virginia would not lose any federal transportation funds. (In 1991, Green explains, Congress had threatened states with the loss of federal highway funds if they did not automatically suspend the licenses of drug offenders.)
Bacon’s bottom line: There is no rational nexus between committing a drug-related crime and having a driver’s license suspended or revoked. Ebbin is right, Virginia should reverse the policy. The appropriate way to punish drug dealers — I’m side-stepping here the debate over whether we should decriminalize marijuana — is through sentencing and parole, not depriving offenders of the means to earn a livelihood.
While Ebbin’s legislation is reasonable, we need to go further. Any system that deprives Virginians of drivers’ licenses for non traffic-related offenses at the rate of 160,000 a year creates an enormous social problem. Virginia’s courts have become an engine of oppression and immiseration, perpetuating poverty. We need to find a better way.
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