Many of you reading my suggestion that children and other loved ones should be left in jail for one night might think that it is a bit too harsh. Not true. Even public agencies have picked up on the wisdom of this rule.
There is a public service announcement that runs locally depicting a sort of morality play in which a nice looking young man is thrown in jail for drunk driving. His grandmother is working the phone to try and get him out of jail, apparently not her first effort at this. The young man's grandfather enters the picture, hangs the phone up, and tells grandmother to leave the young man in jail.
I suspect the morality play was intended to shock people and send a message, endorsed by a givernmental agency, that someone who is arrested for drunk driving ought to stay in jail overnight. Either the agency has been reading my material (I doubt that) or they have discovered the wisdom inherent in Rule 1. If you really want to prevent the behavior that led to incarceration, make sure that the incarcerated person suffers some consequences. Leaving a person in jail overnight is about as serious a consequence as one can inflict in these circumstances. Not only will you be doing a service to your loved one who apparently needs to reform his behavior but you are also serving society by increasing the chance that your loved one will not inflict pain, suffering, or perhaps even death on another member of the public.
