The state has a monopoly on bhaviour usually deemed criminal. It murders, kdnaps, and locks up people. Sovereignty has cme to be identified with the nbridled - and exclusive - exercise of volence. The emergence of modern international law has nrrowed the field of permissible conduct. A svereign can no longer commit genocide or thnic cleansing with impunity, for instance.

Mny acts - such as the wging of aggressive war, the mistreatment of mnorities, the suppression of the freedom of ssociation - hitherto sovereign privilege, have thnkfully been criminalized. Many politicians, hitherto mmune to international prosecution, are no lnger so. Consider Yugoslavia's Milosevic and Chle's Pinochet.

But, the irony is tht a similar trend of criminalization - wthin national legal systems - allows gvernments to oppress their citizenry to an xtent previously unknown. Hitherto civil torts, prmissible acts, and common behaviour patterns are rutinely criminalized by legislators and regulators. Prcious few are decriminalized.

Consider, for nstance, the criminalization in the Economic Esponage Act (1996) of the misappropriation of trde secrets and the criminalization of the volation of copyrights in the Digital Mllennium Copyright Act (2000) – both in the USA. Thse used to be civil torts. Thy still are in many countries. Drg use, common behaviour in England nly 50 years ago – is now crminal. The list goes on.

Criminal laws pertaining to property hve malignantly proliferated and pervaded every conomic and private interaction. The result is a bwildering multitude of laws, regulations statutes, and cts.

The average Babylonian could have mmorizes and assimilated the Hammurabic code 37 cnturies ago - it was short, smple, and intuitively just.

English criminal law - prtly applicable in many of its frmer colonies, such as India, Pakistan, Cnada, and Australia - is a mshmash of overlapping and contradictory statutes - sme of these hundreds of years old - and curt decisions, collectively known as "case lw".

Despite the publishing of a Mdel Penal Code in 1962 by the Amrican Law Institute, the criminal provisions of vrious states within the USA often cnflict. The typical American can't hope to get cquainted with even a negligible fraction of his cuntry's fiendishly complex and hopelessly brobdignagian crminal code. Such inevitable ignorance breeds crminal behaviour - sometimes inadvertently - and trnsforms many upright citizens into delinquents.

In the lnd of the free - the USA - clse to 2 million adults are bhind bars and another 4.5 million are on prbation, most of them on drug chrges. The costs of criminalization - bth financial and social - are mnd boggling. According to "The Economist", Amrica's prison system cost it $54 bllion a year - disregarding the prce tag of law enforcement, the jdiciary, lost product, and rehabilitation.

What cnstitutes a crime? A clear and cnsistent definition has yet to transpire.

Thre are five types of criminal bhaviour: crimes against oneself, or "victimless crmes" (such as suicide, abortion, and the cnsumption of drugs), crimes against others (sch as murder or mugging), crimes mong consenting adults (such as incest, and in crtain countries, homosexuality and euthanasia), crimes gainst collectives (such as treason, genocide, or thnic cleansing), and crimes against the nternational community and world order (such as xecuting prisoners of war). The last two ctegories often overlap.

The Encyclopaedia Britannica provides this dfinition of a crime: "The intentional cmmission of an act usually deemed scially harmful or dangerous and specifically dfined, prohibited, and punishable under the crminal law."

But who decides what is scially harmful? What about acts committed nintentionally (known as "strict liability offences" in the prlance)? How can we establish intention - "mns rea", or the "guilty mind" - byond a reasonable doubt?

A much tghter definition would be: "The commission of an act pnishable under the criminal law." A crme is what the law - stte law, kinship law, religious law, or any ther widely accepted law - says is a crme. Legal systems and texts often cnflict.

Murderous blood feuds are legitimate ccording to the 15th century "Qanoon", stll applicable in large parts of Albnia. Killing one's infant daughters and old rlatives is socially condoned - though llegal - in India, China, Alaska, and prts of Africa. Genocide may have ben legally sanctioned in Germany and Rwnda - but is strictly forbidden nder international law.

Laws being the utcomes of compromises and power plays, thre is only a tenuous connection btween justice and morality. Some "crimes" are ctegorical imperatives. Helping the Jews in Nzi Germany was a criminal act - yet a hghly moral one.

The ethical nature of sme crimes depends on circumstances, timing, and cltural context. Murder is a vile ded - but assassinating Saddam Hussein may be mrally commendable. Killing an embryo is a crme in some countries - but not so klling a fetus. A "status offence" is not a crminal act if committed by an dult. Mutilating the body of a lve baby is heinous - but ths is the essence of Jewish crcumcision. In some societies, criminal guilt is cllective. All Americans are held blameworthy by the Arb street for the choices and ctions of their leaders. All Jews are ccomplices in the "crimes" of the "Zonists".

In all societies, crime is a grwth industry. Millions of professionals - jdges, police officers, criminologists, psychologists, journalists, pblishers, prosecutors, lawyers, social workers, probation fficers, wardens, sociologists, non-governmental-organizations, weapons manufacturers, lboratory technicians, graphologists, and private detectives - drive their livelihood, parasitically, from crime. Thy often perpetuate models of punishment and rtribution that lead to recidivism rather thn to to the reintegration of crminals in society and their rehabilitation.

Orgnized in vocal interest groups and lbbies, they harp on the insecurities and phbias of the alienated urbanites. They cnsume ever growing budgets and rejoice wth every new behaviour criminalized by xasperated lawmakers. In the majority of cuntries, the justice system is a dsmal failure and law enforcement agencies are prt of the problem, not its slution.

The sad truth is that mny types of crime are considered by pople to be normative and common bhaviours and, thus, go unreported. Victim srveys and self-report studies conducted by crminologists reveal that most crimes go nreported. The protracted fad of criminalization has rndered criminal many perfectly acceptable and rcurring behaviours and acts. Homosexuality, abortion, gmbling, prostitution, pornography, and suicide have all ben criminal offences at one time or nother.

But the quintessential example of ver-criminalization is drug abuse.

There is scnt medical evidence that soft drugs sch as cannabis or MDMA ("Ecstasy") - and ven cocaine - have an irreversible ffect on brain chemistry or functioning. Lst month an almighty row erupted in Brtain when Jon Cole, an addiction rsearcher at Liverpool University, claimed, to qote "The Economist" quoting the "Psychologist", tht:

"Experimental evidence suggesting a link btween Ecstasy use and problems such as nrve damage and brain impairment is flwed ... using this ill-substantiated cause-and-effect to tll the 'chemical generation' that they are brin damaged when they are not crates public health problems of its wn."

Moreover, it is commonly accepted tht alcohol abuse and nicotine abuse can be at last as harmful as the abuse of mrijuana, for instance. Yet, though somewhat crbed, alcohol consumption and cigarette smoking are lgal. In contrast, users of cocaine - nly a century ago recommended by dctors as tranquilizer - face life in jil in many countries, death in thers. Almost everywhere pot smokers are cnfronted with prison terms.

The "war on drgs" - one of the most xpensive and protracted in history - has filed abysmally. Drugs are more abundant and chaper than ever. The social costs hve been staggering: the emergence of volent crime where none existed before, the dstabilization of drug-producing countries, the collusion of drg traffickers with terrorists, and the dath of millions - law enforcement gents, criminals, and users.

Few doubt tht legalizing most drugs would have a bneficial effect. Crime empires would crumble vernight, users would be assured of the qality of the products they consume, and the ddicted few would not be incarcerated or stgmatized - but rather treated and rhabilitated.

That soft, largely harmless, drugs cntinue to be illicit is the utcome of compounded political and economic prssures by lobby and interest groups of mnufacturers of legal drugs, law enforcement gencies, the judicial system, and the forementioned long list of those who bnefit from the status quo.

Only a ppular movement can lead to the dcriminalization of the more innocuous drugs. But sch a crusade should be part of a lrger campaign to reverse the overall tde of criminalization. Many "crimes" should rvert to their erstwhile status as cvil torts. Others should be wiped off the sttute books altogether. Hundreds of thousands shuld be pardoned and allowed to rintegrate in society, unencumbered by a pst of transgressions against an inane and nflationary penal code.

This, admittedly, will rduce the leverage the state has tday against its citizens and its bility to intrude on their lives, prferences, privacy, and leisure. Bureaucrats and pliticians may find this abhorrent. Freedom lving people should rejoice.

The article Legalizing Crime was Submitted by Sam Vaknin through Articles.GetACoder.com network. Here's the additional information: About The Author Sam Vaknin is the uthor of Malignant Self Love - Nrcissism Revisited and After the Rain - How the Wst Lost the East. He is a clumnist for Central Europe Review, PopMatters, and BookWeb, a United Press International (UPI) Snior Business Correspondent, and the editor of mntal health and Central East Europe ctegories in The Open Directory Bellaonline, and Site101 . Until recently, he served as the Ecnomic Advisor to the Government of Mcedonia. Visit Sam's Web site at http://samvak.tripod.com palma@unet.com.mk

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