Overcriminalization

Overcriminalization

One way of describing overcriminalization is the result of having too many laws in any particular society. Over the past few decades, our government has been slowly introducing overcriminalization throughout our nation in small quantities, in order not to alarm society of all the changes they have been undertaking. If one were to think back a few decades, one could easily recall three major federal offenses, which were around. These offenses were treason, piracy, and counterfeiting. Today, there are thousands of federal laws and regulations; and violating any one of them, no matter how unintentional or harmless the offense was can easily lead a person to receive years of imprisonment.

Method

The proper definition for public morality is termed morality and can be used as either descriptively referring to a code of conduct put forward by a society. Or some other group, such as a religion, or as an accepted behavior by an individual, or normatively to refer to a code of conduct that when given specified conditions would be put forward by all rational people. Criminal laws' are directed at the conduct society recognizes as inherently wrongful and in a sense, immoral. These acts were wrongs in and of themselves (malum in se), such as murder, rape, and robbery. Recently, criminal law expanded its reaches to address conduct that is wrongful and not because of its intrinsic nature but because of being a prohibited wrong (malum prohibitum).

Which brings us to overcriminalization that refers to the idea that law regulating public morality causes substantial diversion of police, prosecutors, judicial, personnel, and lowering opportunity costs? This is troubling because now it is a moral legislation hiding behind a criminal prohibition. That has removed the well-defined intent (mens rea) which now has potential to criminalize innocent conduct. Conduct such as buying and selling horsemeat is a crime, parents with children going to jail for not reporting nearby drug activity to law enforcement, or children in elementary school charged with felonies for drawing stick figures. Legislative branches have transferred some of its authority that regulates social and economic conduct to prosecutors and trial judges. In addition, to the transferred authority they have jurors that lack accountability, little expertise for deciding criminalizing conduct, and are without the ability to consider the larger social impacts of their decisions.

Government-sanctioned views

Government-sanctioned views of morality may properly intrude into the private lives of citizens in many different ways. One of the many ways is spanking your children and it carrying criminal penalties as though it were abuse. According to E. Little's Blog:

Sparing the rod may spoil the child, but in California, it may keep you from being charged with a misdemeanor. The California State Assembly has provided another horrendous example of legislators abusing the use of criminal penalties to implement policy goalsÐ'--this time in the arena of parenting. If child abuse is the concern, current laws protecting children from physical abuse should be the remedy. If those laws are insufficient, perhaps legislators should consider revising them to prevent real abuse. For example, in spanking, to prevent a parent from being able to discipline their child in the way they choose implicates fundamental constitutional rights (2007).

What about the Bipartisan Campaign Reform Act (BRACA) of 2002 and its reason was to hold corporate and union officials criminally liable for knowingly broadcasting advertisements 30 days before a primary and 60 days before a general election. According to the Free Congress Foundation, the act was restricting freedom of speech, specifically the political freedom of speech for individuals to participate in debates before an election (Lilienthal, 2004). Does it matter or hold any value to the average citizen whether an organization wants to participate in a public debate? Logically, it sounds good because of getting the information out to the voters but shows no signs of being a crime.

How about the article written by Trent England and Paul Rosenzweig (2004) discusses law Congress is trying to pass that makes buying and selling horsemeat a crime. The American Horse Slaughter Prevention Act makes it a crime to slaughter a horse for human consumption but it does not prevent slaughtering horses to make dog food or glue. Why is it ethical to slaughter a horse to make glue or for dog consumption and not for human consumption?

According to Healy at the Cato Institute writes, "A bill approved by the house judiciary committee making it a crime if parents learn of any drug activity near their children and do not report it to law enforcement officials. Parents could spend up to three years in jail if they do not report it within 24 hours (2005, May 18). Whatever happened to protecting our children from doing wrong and teaching them right from wrong? As of recently, there is no proof that deterrence works in preventing crime.

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