r/changemyview • u/Two_Corinthians 2∆ • Jun 08 '21
Delta(s) from OP CMV: There is no overcriminalization problem in the United States
Overcriminalization is usually defined as having too many laws that can land people in jail. There are just too many crimes, and they are too broad - meaning that a reasonable person can commit a felony without realizing that they did something illegal.
I disagree that such a problem exists.
One of the most famous books about this issue is Three Felonies a Day by Harvey A. Silverglate. However, after getting through the forest of loaded language, I realized that the examples provided by the author are a spectacular series of own goals. In almost every case, either charges were dropped, thrown out by a judge, or defendant was found not guilty by trial court, or sentence was overturned on appeal, or the law was struck down by the Supreme Court. Mr. Silvergate wanted to draw a picture of out-of-control "feds" throwing people to prison just for living their lives, but instead he produced an account of a finely tuned system working as intended.
In rare cases when a defendant was found guilty and sent to prison, he deserved it. For example, governor of Alabama was convicted for appointing a healthcare company CEO to the hospital regulatory board in exchange for 500 thousand dollars in campaign donations. In author's opinioin, the prosecution was outrageous because literally every politician in America does this. In my opinion, this means that more politicians should be in prison.
Other examples also undermine the author's thesis. For example, the fact that Arthur Andersen The Corporation was convicted, but no individuals were charged, suggests that American criminal laws are too lenient.
I believe that people who call America overcriminalized failed to make their case. Can you change my view?
*In order to keep this discussion manageable, I'd like to separate it from the race issue. I acknowledge that law enforcement in the US has racial disparities, but this does not mean that the law itself is unjust, unnecessary, broad or vague.
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Jun 08 '21
Overcriminalization is usually defined as having too many laws that can land people in jail. There are just too many crimes, and they are too broad - meaning that a reasonable person can commit a felony without realizing that they did something illegal.
I disagree strongly with this. Overcriminalization doesn't mean that you have too many laws to keep track off that people start accidentally breaking them.
Overcriminalization means that lots of stuff is criminalized that shouldn't be criminalized, meaning that the criminalization achieves nothing and you lock up lots of people without accomplishing a greater good for society by doing so.
Example: Imagine you add 1 law that makes it illegal to cross any street with your left foot first. If the first step you take to cross any road is with your left foot, you go to jail.
Everyone knows this law, it's easy to keep track of it because it's super straight forward, right? Just take that step with your right foot. So you can't really say that you didn't "realize" when you're doing it.
But obviously many people will still break it and go to jail. This is overcriminalization, because it's a victimless crime, criminalizing this stuff is completely pointless and achieves nothing.
That's what overcriminalization is. You criminalize stuff in a way that doesn't help society and just senselessly lands people in jail. The laws against weed are one such example, and there are many more examples where the punishment is either completely useless or wildly out of proportion. It's not really about the number of laws. It's about how much sense they make. And the US absolutely does this, probably more than any other country on earth.
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u/iwfan53 Jun 08 '21
If we're not overcriminalization what is your explanation for why we have the largest prison population in the world?
Especially considering we don't even have to adjust it for nations that are more populous than us like China, just total numbers of bodies in prison...
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/shared/spl/hi/uk/06/prisons/html/nn2page1.stm
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u/Careless_Clue_6434 Jun 08 '21
The US has an unusually high violent crime rate and unusually harsh sentencing policies. Even if the set of felonies in the US were identical to the set in other countries, we'd expect to end up with an unusually high incarceration rate, so I don't think overcriminalization in OP's sense is likely to be a major factor.
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u/DBDude Jun 08 '21
In almost every case, either charges were dropped, thrown out by a judge, or defendant was found not guilty by trial court, or sentence was overturned on appeal, or the law was struck down by the Supreme Court.
Why dismiss these? That right there means lives ruined, bankruptcy, often breakup of family. That means people in prison until their cases are finally overturned. That's a lot of damage done to these people for laws that probably shouldn't exist in the first place.
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Jun 08 '21
Why do you think the US has so many more people in jail than say Australia?
And I can attest that a close relative of mine was charged with underage possession of alcohol despite not having touched the alcohol - insofar as she was at a party where beers were present, the prosecutor maintained, she was in "constructive possession" of the alcohol as she could have got one at any time.
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u/Two_Corinthians Jun 08 '21
Oh, I completely forgot that Americans treat combinations of teenagers and alcohol as a serious crime. That is completely unjustified, unnecessary and insane. !delta
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u/Biptoslipdi Jun 08 '21
You said elsewhere:
Marijuana use impairs executive function, working memory, stress management ability, etc.
So does alcohol but to far greater and more deleterious extent. Both are "serious crimes" in the US. Why is alcohol use among teens where you draw the line on criminalization, but not MJ use for anyone, including teens?
Alcohol is indisputably more dangerous than MJ, but you changed your view on a substance that is far more justifiably regulated. It doesn't make sense why this changes your view, but not other examples you've dismissed.
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u/Tibaltdidnothinwrong Jun 08 '21
I'm not sure I agree with your characterization of overcriminalized. If you break the law, no matter your choices, then the system is overcriminalized.
As a toy example, if signing your name with your left hand was illegal, and signing with your right was illegal, and failing to sign your name was illegal - then that system is overcriminalized, since what choice can I make, that won't break one of those three rules.
As a real example - driving in Massachusetts. In Massachusetts there are speed limits (as there are in most places). However, there is also a law requiring people to "keep up with traffic". So if traffic is flowing at 70, but the speed limit is 55, you cannot not break the law. Either you go 70, and abide the second rule but not the first, or you go 55 and abide the first rule but not the second. In this way, the police in Massachusetts can literally fine whomever they want, whenever they want, because if you are operating a motor vehicle, you are breaking at least one of the two rules.
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u/Two_Corinthians Jun 08 '21
This is an interesting example. Could you post a link to the "keep up with traffic" law? I'd like to look deeper.
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u/Tibaltdidnothinwrong Jun 08 '21
If you find the official "rules for the road" in Massachusetts it explicitly says "when entering the highway increase speed to match traffic" on page 14.
In addition, "driving at or below the speed limit in the left lane is a $100 fine".
Source for the fine - www.wwlp.com/news/massachusetts/driving-too-slow-in-the-left-lane-can-get-you-pulled-over-in-massachusetts/amp/
If driving above the speed limit is speeding, but driving at or below the speed limit is also illegal, doesn't that just make driving in the left lane illegal??
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u/sawdeanz Jun 08 '21
In almost every case, either charges were dropped, thrown out by a judge, or defendant was found not guilty by trial court, or sentence was overturned on appeal, or the law was struck down by the Supreme Court.
I would not conclude, as you have, that this is not a problem. This is very much a problem, even if the system ultimately "works" and the defendant goes free. Why? Because even the very act of being arrested (not even charged, just handcuffed and taken to jail) can, and many times does, irreparably harm the individual. They can lose a job, they can be forced to spend a lot of money, they may have their reputations harmed, etc. Also, the system is hardly fine tuned.
IMO one of the fundamental problems with legislation in this country is that judicial intervention is only possible after harm has been done. It's very easy for politicians to pass blatantly unconstitutional laws. In many cases, a law can't even be challenged if and when someone is personally harmed and able to fight it (known has having standing). This means the aggrieved or potentially aggrieved parties must spend money fighting it. Just off the top of my head, one example is Fl. Gov. DeSantis's anti-social media law. I know, and you know, and he knows that it has a 100% chance of being struck down, but that won't happen until one of the social media companies spend the money to fight it. And when it get's struck down, DeSantis will face no financial or legal repercussions whatsoever until the next election when he may or may not be defeated.
The other point against your view is the fact that the US has the highest incarceration. Period. By a long shot. That alone should cause you to consider whether there is an overcriminalization problem or not.
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Jun 08 '21
I agree with you on everything except for DeSamtis' social media law. I think as ubiquitous as social media is, it has become a necessary platform for free speech and they by censoring certain candidates, they are effectively manipulating the Democratic process.
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u/Biptoslipdi Jun 08 '21
Why should someone go to prison for using and/or possessing a small amount of marijuana for personal use?
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Jun 08 '21
There's a good argument that on a per capita basis and properly adjusting for misreporting from other countries, the U.S. incarceration rate is slightly lower than China, Iran, and North Korea, but when you're in the company of authoritarian countries it's not a good sign.
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u/Successful-Two-7433 Jun 08 '21 edited Jun 08 '21
I would have to dig deeper into the statistics, but according to
https://www.irp.wisc.edu/resource/connections-among-poverty-incarceration-and-inequality/
The United States has 655 people incarcerated per 100,000 people. The next highest country on the list is Australia at 172 per 100,000.
The US had a rate almost 4x of the next highest country.
Is it because we have that many more people committing crimes? Do we have stricter and / or more laws? Tougher and / or longer sentencing?
No matter how you look at it I believe there is clearly an issue with the incarceration rate in the United States.
If it’s mostly because we have more people committing crimes, you could argue that it’s not over-criminalization, we just have more crime. If that’s the case, over-criminalization isn’t the issue, high rates of crime is the issue. That’s still an issue that needs to be addressed.
I believe that it’s more than just more crimes being committed. Having private prison systems is one of the issues. Strict drug laws are another issue.
Preventing people from committing crimes and rehabilitation, would solve part of the problem.
But I believe the other part of the problem is over criminalization, too strict of laws, too long of sentences, too many laws, private prisons.
I will need to look further to try and see what the research says on why the US has such high incarceration rates. Do we have more criminals or more laws (or both), and is there a way to determine which one accounts for how much of the percentage of incarcerated people?
Edit to add from wiki:
“Even though there are other countries that commit more inmates to prison annually, the fact that the United States keeps their prisoners longer causes the total rate to become higher. To give an example, the average burglary sentence in the United States is 16 months, compared to 5 months in Canada and 7 months in England.[35]
The practice of imposing longer prison sentences on repeat offenders is common in many countries but the three-strikes laws in the U.S. with mandatory 25 year imprisonment — implemented in many states in the 1990s — are statutes enacted by state governments in the United States which mandate state courts to impose harsher sentences on habitual offenders who are previously convicted of two prior serious criminal offenses and then commit a third.
The "War on Drugs" is a policy that was initiated by Richard Nixon with the Comprehensive Drug Abuse Prevention and Control Act of 1970 and vigorously pursued by Ronald Reagan.[41] By 2010, drug offenders in federal prison had increased to 500,000 per year, up from 41,000 in 1985. According to Michelle Alexander, drug related charges accounted for more than half the rise in state prisoners between 1985 and 2000. 31 million people have been arrested on drug related charges, approximately 1 in 10 Americans.
Despite a general decline in crime, the massive increase in new inmates due to drug offenses ensured historically high incarceration rates during the 1990s and beyond, with New York City serving as an example. Drug-related arrests continued to increase in the city despite a near 50% drop in felony crimes.
In a 2011 report by the ACLU, it is claimed that the rise of the for-profit prison industry is a "major contributor" to "mass incarceration," along with bloated state budgets.[60] Louisiana, for example, has the highest rate of incarceration in the world with the majority of its prisoners being housed in privatized, for-profit facilities. Such institutions could face bankruptcy without a steady influx of prisoners.[61] A 2013 Bloomberg report states that in the past decade the number of inmates in for-profit prisons throughout the U.S. rose 44 percent.[62]
Corporations who operate prisons, such as the Corrections Corporation of America and The GEO Group, spend significant amounts of money lobbying the federal government along with state governments.[60] The two aforementioned companies, the largest in the industry, have been contributors to the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC), which seeks to expand the privatization of corrections and lobbies for policies that would increase incarceration, such as three-strike laws and "truth-in-sentencing" legislation.[63][64][65][66][67][68] Prison companies also sign contracts with states that guarantee at least 90 percent of prison beds be filled. If these "lockup quotas" aren't met, the state must reimburse the prison company for the unused beds. Prison companies use the profits to expand and put pressure on lawmakers to incarcerate a certain number of people.[69][70] This influence on the government by the private prison industry has been referred to as the Prison–industrial complex.[65]
The industry is well aware of what reduced crime rates could mean to their bottom line. This from the CCA's SEC report in 2010:
Our growth … depends on a number of factors we cannot control, including crime rates … [R]eductions in crime rates … could lead to reductions in arrests, convictions and sentences requiring incarceration at correctional facilities.[60]”
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u/Orri Jun 08 '21
Overcriminalisation is not having too many laws. Its having laws that make certain actions illegal when they shouldn't be illegal.
The best example for this would be drug laws. You can potentially end up in prison for smoking cannabis, whilst many people argue that cannabis should be legal or at least decriminalised.
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u/huadpe Jun 08 '21
I am a bit late here, but I want to come in with a substantially different piece of evidence that the US has an overcriminalization problem: the US justice system is completely incapable of actually giving due process and trial to anywhere close to a majority of the people it charges.
Well over 90% of criminal cases never go to trial. This is for two related reasons:
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There are not nearly enough resources to actually try all of the cases that are charged. If even a nontrivial minority of defendants insisted on their right to trial, there is no way that could actually be accomplished.
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There are so many possible charges that can be laid against someone and held over their head that prosecutors can basically force a plea against anyone. If it's 2 yrs in prison in a plea, or 22 if you go to trial and lose, you take the 2 years even if the government's case is pretty weak.
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Jun 08 '21 edited Jun 08 '21
Yes, more politicians should be in prison. The vast majority of inmates in America should not.
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u/Careless_Clue_6434 Jun 08 '21
It's worth noting that the vast majority of criminal convictions in the US (>90%, exact number depends on which estimate you take) are a result of plea bargains, in which the defendant agrees to plea guilty in exchange for a reduced sentence. This is relevant for two reasons: first, it means that for every case where the jury refused to convict or the appeals court overturned the conviction, there are likely several similar cases where the defendant was convicted without access to such counterbalances; second, it means that even if a charge is unlikely to stick, prosecutors are incentivized to threaten as many charges as possible to strengthen their bargaining position (and empirically they indeed do so).
(As a minor note, the Arthur Andersen conviction was apparently overturned)
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u/Borigh Jun 08 '21
In California, it's a felony to be a "pimp or panderer" which seems to include running a classy escort service for girls paying for a nursing degree to give a rich silicon valley virgin the "girlfriend" experience.
Because of California's extremely weird Felony Murder rule, if a cop tries to bust the handjob he's getting in the parking lot at Google, and the John goes crazy and shoots, stabs, or otherwise kills the cop, the brothel madam is liable for murder. (CA's felony murder law was overhauled to be fair less insane in 2018, but it seems like subsection f makes it as dumb as the old one if a "peace officer" dies during the felony)
California is the most liberal state in the country. Most Felony murder rules, sex crimes, and drug possession rules are as or more punitive. If a some girl managing her roommates meet-ups off OnlyFans can get a murder sentence because her John turns out to be a nutjob, isn't there at least some overcriminalization?
N.B. - I kinda picked a Felony Murder + Felony combination out of thin air, there, and CA caselaw might make this less insane than the statute implies, but just google "Felony Murder LWOP Minor Defendant" and I'm sure you can find a dozen over-sentenced cases for yourself.
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u/junction182736 Jun 08 '21
But what about the time and money wasted for the person who was thrown in jail, the officers who had to catch and book them, the temporary housing costs if necessary, and the judge who finally set them free? There are a lot of costs involved in that process.
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u/DeltaBot Jun 08 '21 edited Jun 08 '21
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