Laws and Crime

Marcus Everett

Over two centuries ago our Founding Fathers hammered out a Constitution that established a Republican form of government for the Federal Government and for the individual states. Interestingly, it specified many constraints against the governments it created, but proscribed only treason and rebellion against the individual citizen. Even murder was left up to the states to outlaw, with the Constitution specifying only the court systems and procedures to prosecute such crimes. Obviously, the Founding Fathers were NOT interested in creating a 'kindergarten society' where the individual's every act is regulated.

How far we have come in two hundred years. Although the justice system seems to be becoming less willing to forbid murder, theft, rape, and even treason, we have the Nanny State dictating what we can drink, smoke, say and do from birth to death. Drugs are either absolutely forbidden (violations more punishable than murder), or are dispensed to the peasants only with the approval of Big Brother and his stooges - the medical profession.

85 years ago the do-good busybodies even went so far as to amend the Constitution to prohibit the production and use of alcohol. This was the only attempt to date to dictate individual behavior in the Constitution, obviously not in the spirit of the founding document. After 13 years of black markets and violent crime that were the direct result of this idiotic exercise, even the do-good busybodies came to realize that they had created a disaster trying to legislate behavior. The Constitution was amended again to erase the stupidity.

Unfortunately, less than a half a century later the next crop of do-good busybodies launched an identical attempt to legislate morality by the 'War on Drugs' nonsense, although not with the Constitution. Perhaps the failure to learn from Prohibition is due to the failure of the public education system to teach, among other things, history. In any case, the same result of black markets and violent crime followed like night follows day. This time, however, the do-gooders haven't figured out their stupidity even after more than 30 years of violent crime.

Laws create crimes. This is true in every case in that, by definition, a crime is the breaking of a law. But in cases where ill conceived laws try to modify the behavior of a significant percentage of the population, a secondary crime wave can result in addition to the violations of the law itself. Far worse are these secondary crimes that result from the fact that black markets cannot use the court system to enforce contracts. The only avenue for the black marketeer to enforce a contract in default is violence. Prohibition and drug laws are classic examples of laws creating such violent crime waves.

There is no escape from this debacle short of realizing that laws prohibiting behavior that a significant minority find desirable must be repealed. All arguments rationalizing such laws based on morals, health, or safety are always trumped by economics. If it is profitable to supply a forbidden commodity, a criminal empire will spring up to do so, accompanied by the violent crime required to implement it. Regulation and taxation can be effective at further reducing the profitability of socially undesirable markets, but a necessary first step is to repeal all prohibition legislation. The moral aspects must be dealt with by persuasion, not force.

Marcus Everett
P.O. Box 33
Looneyville, WV 25259
marcus.everett@citlink.net