If you're arrested more than once for drunk driving in Huntington Beach, Calif., you may face shaming on Facebook, at least if a proposal by a city councilman is approved.
Devin Dwyer is asking his fellow council members Tuesday to approve Facebook-posting the mug shots of anyone who is arrested more than one time for driving under the influence. The city's police department has a page on the social networking site, where most recently it politely asked citizens on New Year's Eve "to be safe tonight. If you see a drunk driver, call 911."
But Dwyer's idea is not polite.
"If it takes shaming people to save lives, I am willing to do it," he told the Associated Press. "I'm hoping it prevents others from getting behind the wheel and getting inebriated."
Out of 56 cities in the state, Huntington Beach is known for its surfing but also for being the No. 1 among California "cities of similar size for the number of alcohol-related traffic fatalities," AP reports. "In 2009, 195 people were killed or injured. Drunken driving laws are aggressively enforced, and in 2009, there were 1,687 DUI arrests."
Councilwoman Connie Boardman says Facebook shaming would be a bad idea, pure and simple, that those who drive drunk won't care and "are not going to be shamed by this." However, she told AP, "their parents and their spouses" — and children — "would be mortified."
Police spokesman Lt. Russell Reinhart says the department sees "no value" in the drunk driver rogues' gallery on Facebook. He told AP: "Law enforcement is not about public shaming."
And there are privacy issues. Clare Pastore, a civil rights and poverty law professor at the University of Southern California, said there's "a little bit of a 'presumption of innocence' problem."
"It's not really appropriate to shame someone before they are found guilty," she told AP.
