Stigma and Shame Revisited
No drinking and driving; that’s communism!
Let justice roll down like waters.
Amos 5:24
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Dear Friends and Colleagues,
For mental health issues and addictions, overcoming stigma and shame are essential parts of ensuring people get the help they need.
The subtitle of my book Addiction Nation is “What the Opioid Crisis Reveals About Us” because I believe the greatest moral issues at stake in our overdose crisis are not individual choices but societal decisions we’ve made about how we view drugs and treat people who use them.
I recently saw a video from the early 1980s go viral that made me think about shame and stigma from a different perspective. It included interviews with your “average” Californian responding to the news of a state law that would drop the legal limit from blood alcohol content from .20 down to .10. One woman quipped with a baby in the car seat next to her, “You can’t drink when you want to, you have to wear a seatbelt when you’re driving. Pretty soon, we’ll be a communist country!”
Since the time of that clip, drunk driving-related deaths have plummeted by 37% for the general population and 83% for young people. In a country politically divided, there is no political party or political figure (that I know of) that would dare to say anything like what was repeated in that old news clip. In a radical cultural transformation, it is a broadly accepted social norm to expect people to drive sober. That is, in many ways, a very good thing.
Shifts in social norms, and maybe even what we’d call stigma, resulted in altered behavior that has undoubtedly saved tens of thousands of lives. It is widely considered a shameful act to endanger your life and the lives of others by driving under the influence.
Social stigma “works” in the sense that it can be a powerful force for changing population-wide behavior. Because it can change behavior, it is tempting to apply it everywhere, or somehow, to think it is the only way to shift social norms. A biblical account of justice requires us to consider not just victims, but the perpetrators. And doing so, is better for both.
There is another side to the story of drunk driving in the United States. One of the most prominent advocacy groups in the space and often credited with changing the tide of public opinion is Mothers Against Drunk Driving. Not only did they craft public relations campaigns to ensure that the public understood the deadly consequences of driving while intoxicated, but they also established a program called “Victim Impact Panels” or “VIPs.”
In courts across the country, judges can include in sentencing for DUIs attendance at a session where they hear the stories of those negatively impacted by drunk driving. The purpose is to increase empathy of the perpetrator for victims of drunk driving.
The evidence for the effects of these panels is mixed. While a few studies showed a potential reduction in recidivism, the highest quality studies conducted have actually shown the opposite. For many people, they have no effect on future behavior, and for certain groups, the program might actually increase the likelihood of someone drinking and driving in the future.
While not everyone who gets a DUI charge has a substance use disorder, many people, especially repeat offenders, often do. They might already feel shame around their substance use, and attending a panel might exacerbate that shame and lead to more self-medication.
Another dynamic that might be at play concerns what restoration looks like after an infraction. A recent Traffic Safety Commission Report from the State of Washington report hypothesized that these programs are missing a critical element, something constructive for the offender to do. They posited that incorporating aspects of restorative justice into the process might make the programs more effective.
Creating positive social norms, like the expectation of sobriety while driving, can be a good thing for society. Reliance on harsh stigmatization may shift behavior for some people but can also create a backlash effect. Stigma becomes the barrier that keeps people in the “fold,” and it also can be the wall that keeps people out. On a personal level, shame can be the alarm bell we experience, telling us we are on the wrong path. It can also be a trap that mires us in a place where we lose hope for growth and improvement.
Shifting social norms towards healthy behaviors (like teenagers not smoking) can be a life-saving thing. Creating harsh social stigma that leads to shame-filled despair can be counterproductive. This has been a reality that climate activists have faced, you can give folks many facts, but that doesn’t mean it will inspire positive action. For that movement, one of the big lessons has always been to focus on concrete actions people can take that will make a difference or risk having people tune out altogether.
When it comes to driving under the influence, I believe the heart of the matter comes down to whether our goal is retribution or restoration. It is the beauty of the Jewish concept of Tikkun Olam, to heal a broken world. And we can see how Jesus lived that out in his ministry when he went to those who bore the greatest social stigma and called them into fellowship and restoration.
We don’t need to choose between concern for the victims of those who have driven under the influence and those who have been the perpetrators. We can continue to create new, safer social norms and ensure that there are pathways of restoration. It will make a better world for us all.
Keep the faith,
Timothy McMahan King
Senior Fellow, CNDP