Alcoholism, clinical and experimental research
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Alcohol. Clin. Exp. Res. · Aug 2007
Effects of drivers' license suspension policies on alcohol-related crash involvement: long-term follow-up in forty-six states.
We evaluated the effects of driving under the influence (DUI) mandatory preconviction and postconviction drivers' license suspension laws in each of 46 U.S. states using 1 to 2 decades of long-term follow-up data on fatal car crashes. State-specific results were combined using meta-analytic techniques, and provide a direct test of the concept of celerity--time between offending behavior and consequent punishment--from deterrence theory. ⋯ The effectiveness of a deterrence policy appears to be more strongly affected by celerity-the speed by which punishment is applied after the offending behavior--than by the high severity of the penalty. This finding could be fruitfully applied to other areas of alcohol control policy and laws and regulations in general.