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October 5, 2017 – Criminal Justice

Prison Policy Initiative Report Analyzes Effect of Driver’s License Suspensions

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Prison Policy Initiative Report Analyzes Effect of Driver’s License Suspensions

A new report from the Prison Policy Initiative analyzes the needless harm caused by driver’s license suspensions for drug offenses that are unrelated to driving.

Rather than deterring crime, unnecessary license suspensions create barriers to opportunity, often trapping individuals in a cycle of poverty and unemployment. In addition, suspending the license of an individual who has no record of unsafe driving wastes government resources that could be spent taking truly dangerous drivers off the road.

“Our criminal justice system should not set people up to fail. Yet that is exactly what mandatory driver’s license suspensions do: they introduce new legal, economic, and social barriers for people who are in the midst of reentry,” writes Joshua Aiken, author of the report.

Read the full report