Opinion: Coos County needs to quit letting drunk drivers off the hook

Looking through the windshield of someone going fast in a car at night.Photo bySamuele Errico PiccarinionUnsplash

Anyone that pays attention to the police logs for Coos County can tell you that people rarely go to jail for crimes these days. You can do things like steal or drive drunk and the jail won't take you in.

For the most part, the Coos County Jail is able to handle many more people coming in and out of it but there seem to be some staffing issues. You have to wonder if having no punishment for a crime is really a benefit to anyone except criminals.

In my opinion, crime is going to happen no matter what and so I'm not sure that jailing people for every minor issue is worth it. However, there are some crimes I see people getting away with that really should be taken more seriosly, like when people are caught driving drunk.

Coos County police will release a drunk driver to a sober adult, according to news stories you can find regarding drunk drivers. I've also seen the police say they release drunk drivers to a sober adult on social media, which is insane to me.

Anyone that decides to drive drunk obviously cannot be trusted not to drive again. What if they go home and get right back in a vehicle and kill someone? I think they at least need to be held until they sober up just to be safe.

The way crime is handled in Coos County is very odd to me in general since I come from an area of the country where you can get arrested for looking at an officer wrong. I think there are pros and cons to both approaches but I have to draw the line at letting drunk drivers go while they are still intoxicated.

While you may be able to get some people to chill out and not drive again, there are going to be people that go right back to what they were doing as soon as they get a chance, even if they're not sober yet. We are playing with fire in my opinion and people will get killed.

What do you think, is driving drunk a big deal to you as well? Do you get tired of how lenient they are on crime in Coos County?