1989 Mass. law leaves poorest unable to drive...

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.