Our police service’s decision to publish the names of people charged with impaired driving can be a challenging proposition for the media.
Chief Frank Elsner said, after a recent rise in impaired driving statistics, the police service feels there is a need to make the names public.
“We do that for other offences such as a homicide, as an example, or missing people or serious sexual assaults,” he said. “Finally, after all of this time, we think impairing driving in this community has hit that threshold.”
The list of impaired driving charges will include the names of everyone who was charged, Elsner said. When a criminal offence in Canada is laid, the name is public information — all people have to do is go to the courthouse to find out the individual’s name.
But if the police are “just releasing (names) ahead of time,” does that not make them judge and jury in the court of public opionion?
When it comes to publishing the names of those who are charged with a crime, proper follow-up reporting becomes critical. If a news outlet chooses to publish the name of an alleged criminal, that news outlet should follow through and get the whole story. Was the convicton upheld in court? What was the sentence? Sadly, this isn’t always the case, and stories frequently get dropped as journalists try to juggle being watchdogs with the overwhelming demands of high-volume multimedia reporting. At the end of the day, we simply can’t follow up on every name that is offered for publication.
Over the years, Northern Life has been contacted by convicts who want a story removed from our archives because they say they have moved on, made the necessary adjustments required to become upstanding, productive citizens. They want a second chance. But we can’t change the record. What’s happened has happened. We only report on it, as it is relayed to us from various sources. We cannot offer up our opinion in a news story, or arbitrarily erase history based on a glowing testimonial from a rehabilitated criminal.
Which is why it is so troubling to wrestle with publishing names. Police Chief Elsner says this is something the “vast majority” of people want. Based on the phone calls, letters, e-mails and website comments we receive, this is a fair statement to make.
The appeal of publishing names is timeless. Throughout history, public shaming has been used to correct behaviours of all kind. It forces people to reconcile their behaviour with their conscience. Does public shaming work? For those people who feel they are above the law, having their names published anywhere has little impact upon them. But one Northern Life reader pointed out that she believes “strongly that this will be an effective deterrent against impaired driving...for those who don’t find common sense, human decency or the law enough of a deterrent.”
Graeme Norton of the Canadian Civil Liberties Association offers up an interesting perspective in a National Post story published May 31:
“We recognize the impact drinking and driving can have on communities and that it’s a very difficult task for police to come up with new strategies for combatting this problem,” he said. “...The risk is people are going to assume that (the accused are) guilty of the crime without that person being found guilty in a court.”
He said there is no real issue when the police take special effort to release the name of an accused in a case that has been followed by the media for months or is of significant public interest. “But for police to selectively publicize names outside of obvious interests of protecting the public seem to me to go too far.”
He added there might be an assumption that every impaired driving case will lead to a conviction, making publicizing the names of the accused less of a civil liberties issue.
“Drunk driving cases can be very complex and there are different ways people can end up not being convicted.”
As soon as the complexities of justice and life enter the equation, the answers never come easily.
The bottom line is this — no matter what the outcome, having one’s name published in the paper, or through any medium, shouldn’t be the ultimate reason why one makes a decision — in this case, to drive impaired or not. We need more headlines about people who choose to do the right thing. Authentic morality comes from within, not as a result of public pressure.
Wendy Bird is managing editor of Northern Life.
