1989 Mass. law leaves poorest unable to drive... [View all]
Suspending licenses over drug crimes questioned
Edwin Melendez, with his son Caleb at their apartment in Worcester, can’t afford to get his driver’s license restored.
WORCESTER — Edwin Melendez was stealing Buicks and snorting cocaine by age 13. And for decades he stumbled in and out of jail, sometimes landing in a homeless shelter here called People in Peril.
Life is different now. Melendez, 45, is married. He volunteers with a ministry that serves food to homeless people every Saturday in his scruffy Main South neighborhood. And he is heavily involved in the drug-addiction recovery movement.
But when he was offered a state job collecting data on substance abuse treatment, he had to turn it down. The work required travel by car, and an old drug-possession conviction carried a lingering penalty: the suspension of his right to operate a vehicle.
http://www.bostonglobe.com/metro/2015/09/05/driver-license-suspension-law-leaves-convicted-drug-offenders-struggling-without-transportation/slMg3dijd4nUKl6HhU6hRI/story.html
Somethings wrong with this law.
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