Research-DUI: different types of punishments

“The study in Section II on the effect of license suspension in the 3 years before Ohio implemented ALS and VA laws demonstrated that suspended DUI offenders had 38% to 43% fewer DUI convictions and 24% to 35% fewer crashes than did similar DUI offenders who were fully licensed."(NHTSA, 1999)


National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (1999). In Effectiveness of the Ohio Vehicle Action and Administration License Suspension Laws. Retrieved Nov. 21, 2011, from http://www.nhtsa.gov/people/injury/research/ohio/exec_sum.html


This is an article that analyzed many statistics and performed experiments to study the effectiveness of suspending a license as a result of driving under the influence.  This study found that this is a good way to lower recidivism, but that many people do go on to drink and drive again even after having this punishment. This will be useful in my paper because I am studying the effectiveness of different DUI punishments.  I can use this quote as evidence to back my points.




"The results show that an ignition inter license restriction program can significantly reduce recidivism among drivers with multiple alcohol traffic violations."(Beck,1999)


Baker, B.A., Beck, K.H., Rauch, W.J., Williams, A.F. (1999). Effects of Ignition Interlock License Restrictions on Drivers With Multiple Alcohol Offenses: A Randomized Trial in Maryland. American Journal of Public Health, 89(11), 1696.


This article also does a really good job of talking about the effects of a type of program that was put in place to try to lower the amount of people that drive under the influence of drugs. There are some negative components of this article, like the fact that it is very old, however it contains reliable information from a well conducted experiment.  It provides very detailed explanations of the experiments findings and I would be able to use this to back my argument that Ignition Interlock is one of the most effective ways to reduce recidivism. 
 
 

Last Chapters!

Chapter 10 was all about people being diagnosed for diseases that they do not have.  It started off with Ronson attending a Scientology meeting, where all the members mocked the new diseases that had been added to the DSM.  Ronson then met with Robert Spitzer.  Spitzer had embarrassed the American Psychology association by sending in "fakes" and having them diagnosed.  Once he was caught they claimed that they would be able to catch any fakes that he sent in.  A month later they thought he had sent nearly 50 fakes but he had sent none.  They also discussed the new diseases that were added to DSM and that almost every problem in todays society had been added as a diagnosed disease.  He then met with Gary Maier who talked about how children are wrongly medicated because they want their children to be normal.  They don't want to believe that normal children can have problems without having a disease.  As a result many kids are being medicated when they don't need to be.

I found this chapter to be very interesting because we learned about the DSMs in sociology.  I think it is very true that our society has become very reliant on medicine and needing an explanation for any problem they may encounter.  I was really happy with the last chapter because it closed the book well and ended all the loose ties that Ronson had left.  I was unsure if I agreed with what happened to Tony. Through the different parts of the books that he was in, I started to believe that he was a psychopath! The whole book kind of freaked me out because I don't like thinking about the fact that there is such a fine line between normal and psychopath.

Chapter 8 and 9

In the chapter "The Madness of David Shayler," Ronson starts by describing the story of Rachel North.  North was on the Tube in London the day of the July 7th attacks.  She was badly injured but not nearly as badly as many others.  She immediately went home and blogged about the terrible event and later went on to start a support group for the other people who had been involved.  Sometime later the conspiracy group that has made accusations about 9/11 went on to make suggestions that the train had not actually went bombed.  They went further and said that Rachel North was not actually a real person and was actually a probe being used by the government to make other people believe the governments story of what happened that day.  We find out that this group is being led by David Shayler, who had formerly fled the country because he went against the government. Ronson had an interview with him and ended up getting very angry at him because of the terrible things we was saying about a tragic event.  Shayler got a ton of media attention when he started claiming that the airplane flying into the towers in New York, wasn't actually an airplane.  It was a missile and a hologram planted by the government.  He lost media attention when he later went on to claim he was the Messiah which supports the fact that you have to be the right kind of crazy to grab peoples attention.

These chapters discussed many tragedies that have occurred in society in somewhat recent years.  Chapter 8 really opened my eyes to how serious people were about thinking that September 11th was conducted by the government.  I personally think these people are crazy.  I also thought it was interesting that this section provided more support/examples of how people are entertained by the "right kind of crazy." I also was glad that in chapter 9 Ronson realized he was using the psychopath test too often.  Not everyone who shows one bad quality at one point in time is a psychopath!