Crime in a society?

[El D]

I believe news is the appropriate section.

Should a civilised society allow the possibility of committing crime? i.e. If we had a scenario in which the possiblity of crime could be eliminated, would this be a society in which you would wish to live?

[dorothywilso]

Yes!

[OBonio]

Without a doubt.

A life without crime would have horrific consequences.

Current law pretty much makes most people a criminal.

How fast do you drive? Are you witness to litter bugs? Have you ever taken drugs? Is Jihad a reasonable response to westernisation?

I'm guilty of breaking the law. Does it make me a bad person?

[qapmoc]

Well its easy to live in a society without crime, you just change the laws so that things like murder, robbery, speeding, etc..etc..... are no longer against the law.

I am not sure I would want to live there though.

[january_bug]

Absolutely and categorically not!

Assuming we did not follow quapmoc's suggestion (which has impeccable logic, but I'm sure he wasn't actually proposing we do it!!), then I still would not want a society totally free of crime for the simple reason that I believe this would only be possible by

1. Mind control; or


2. Huge amounts of resources

Given that I would not support any sort of Vanilla Sky style (or any other style) mind control/predictive scary stuff, that leaves option two. I've studied the economics of criminal law, and, sad as it is, there is such a thing as an "efficient level of crime". This is because, it is possible (in theory) to reach a margin where one more pound spent on crime prevention results in one less pound being lost by society as a result of crime. However, at the margins, this does not mean that there is no crime. When you consider the costs of crime prevention, it is simply logical to conclude that there will come a point when it would cost more to prevent a crime, than the crime itself would cost. e.g., you have a �10,000 car, and there's a 1 in 1000 chance of it being stolen in the next 3 years. You should therefore spend no more than �3,333 per year on guaranteeing that it would not be stolen. It costs more than that to have a policeman guarding it all day every day and night!

I realise theory and practice don't always turn out to be the same, but basically my argument is that it would simply be too expensive to have a society free of crime. I therefore would accept a level of crime in society (obviously lower than it is at the moment) - that would be an "efficient level of crime".

[qapmoc]

Jan Bug, my idea wasn't completely out of touch with reality, how many governments have changed laws which were put in place to ''protect the people'' but which later administrations have found restricts their ability to do what they want. They change laws just to suit their own agenda at that time.
You might also call it ''moving the goalposts'', I just took it to extremes.

[january_bug]

quapmoc - it wasn't meant as a criticism! I'm sorry if it seemed that way. I quite agree, you are right - governments have moved the goalposts. All I meant was that you're idea was totoally sound - one way of removing crime from society would be to, as you put it, shift the goalposts, so far that there was no crime. I just thought that you weren't actually advocating that we should do it to such an extent as to create a "technically" crime free Britain. It wasn't meant as a criticism of your ideas - I apologise if I caused you offence.

[qapmoc]

Hi Jan Bug, it wasn't taken as criticism by me so don't worry about it and you surely do not need to apologise for giving your honest opinion . I just read the posts again and It seems to be a straightforward discussion of the subject.

The only thing that worries me is that I tried to make my reply/comment as bland as possible and you still thought I was upset by your reply.

You should not assume that everybody here is as sensitive to comments as some people appear to be.

[january_bug]

quapmoc - it's simply that after things that went on last week, I am very keen that my comments are not misunderstood. I thought it better to err on the side of caution - given that my intention wasn't to offend. Anyway, I see that you weren't offended, and no harm is done! :-)

I hope other's take El D up on this thread. Actually, El D - what's your view?! :-)

[Chessman]

Love to live in a society like that, but I don't think its possible, because you can't stop freedom of thought, and where you have freedom of thought, you will always get somone who covets what somone else has, eg, property, neighbours wife etc, and as jan-bug implies, you would also have to have a draconian goverment, Police state.

[jno]

civilisation is a matter of balancing rights. Does the right to be free of terrorists outweigh the right not to be locked up on spec for 90 days? If a way of eliminating crime could be found that infringed on no other rights, great. If not, then you'd have to get out the scales, as bug suggests.

[El D]

Well I initially intended this to go in a slightly different direction - should we have the freedom to commit crime? I take the earlier point about simply changing laws but just take it as our current legislation. I was thinking about this whole 90 day business and I thought, should people have the freedom to break the law? Because if they didn't, would we be free? Would society be perfect, or better? If we were somehow prevented from breaking the law through, for example, some kind of mind control, is that in everyones interest? And counter to this, obviously, is that if we should have the freedom to break the law, why is there such a fuss when it happens? Because we all know it's going to happen, and if we reject the above argument then to a certain extent, we must desire it as a representation of our freedoms?

Of course, the ideal scenario would be where noone wants to commit crime, but even here they would have the freedom to do so. Is crime necessary? Is it an acceptable outlet of some aspect of our society which resents authority? I don't know.

[jake-the-peg]

Would your scenario mean that it would not be possible to commit a crime however small in order to accomplish a greater good?

For example would I not be able to break the speed limit to get a heart attack victim to hospital? Could I commit criminat damage and breaking an entry to rescue a dog stuck in a house after it's owner was taken to hospital?

There are many more examples.

Not only that but peoples ideas of what a crime is can change - Murder's always been a crime but a few centuries ago I could've been sentenced to death for claiming to be an atheist.

I think this ide has been explored by a number of authors over the years - never seems to turn out well in practice.

[felinechums]

Watch the film "Minority Report" with Tom Cruise.

[january_bug]

That example of speeding to get someone to hospital is the perfect example of how it couldn't work, or at least WHY it SHOULDN'T.

It's nonetheless a very interesting idea El D, so please don't think I was knocking you! :-)