In broad terms, there are three types of crimes. The first is what most of us think of when we talk about crime, conduct that is so dangerous or morally culpable that it demands criminal punishment. The second is the pseudo-crime, hidden behind the veneer of a civil sanction to circumvent constitutional scrutiny, and allowed to exist only by dint of awkward judicial gymnastics with the occasional wink. But the bars on the cell are just as strong as they are for the murderer.
The third type is what might be called “accidental.” Not the criminalization of accidents, but the routine imposition of a criminal sanction to enforce behavior that someone decides needs regulating. The theory behind them is that some conduct is good or bad, and it’s up to government to enact a law to make us do or not do that conduct. It ranges from regulations as to what type of trucks can be used to carry containers away from a ship to how high your grass should allowed to grow before your neighbors are rightfully annoyed.
The notion is that crafting rules for behaviors, no matter how banal, won’t work unless there is a penalty on the back end for noncompliance. We should all feel that sense of community spirit as to keep our lawn looking nice, so as not to make our neighbors frown. Yet sometimes, well, the grass grows too tall. It spoils the neighborhood. It detracts from the sense of suburban perfection, like a dandelion or chickweed. How awful. Someone must do something about it.
And in Lenoir City, Tennessee, someone did:
Like many Americans, Karen Holloway has failed to keep her yard work up. Few Americans however have ended up in jail like Holloway after her failure to maintain her yard was turned into a criminal matter. It appears the above garden would be more in line with those wishing to avoid time in the slammer for their overgrown yards.
Holloway stated that she was sent a citation over the summer, but with her husband going to school and both working with only one vehicle (and two kids at home), she let the yard work slide. It is not clear why she was jailed rather than her husband or both owners.
She was given a five day jail sentence by Judge Terry Vann. She said that she was never told that she could have a lawyer or read her rights. Vann however insisted on jail time, though it was reduced to six hours. Vann suggested he might add on more jail time if the city isn’t satisfied with the yard work.
I’m going to say it. Karen Holloway (and her husband) are thoughtless neighbors. She was busy? He was busy? We’re all busy. So what? Not being the dump that brings down the neighborhood is a part of home ownership.
But a criminal? Hardly.
Laws that require behaviors like maintaining one’s yard are the sort of thing that neighborhood busy-bodies adore. How dare someone else not exercise the level of care they demand? Burn the witch!
And they usually find a friend on local (or national) legislating bodies, where people cut from the same cloth commiserate about how those other people just don’t behave the way they want. They must be stopped. They must be made to behave as we demand. Burn the witch!
It’s not that anyone who advocates for the level of micromanagement of other people’s lives reflected in regulatory laws takes seriously the idea that they are creating crimes. They just want the lawn cut or the bushes trimmed. Just trim the damn bushes, witch. But what’s invariably thrown in at the very end of the law or regulation is the kicker: Failure to comply is subject to a fine in the amount of $X or imprisonment for Y days, or both.
Often, the advocates don’t realize this is in there. They didn’t ask for it. They didn’t think about it. Rather, some lawyer who was asked to write up the law or regulation tossed it into the back end on his own, recognizing a detail of construction that others miss. If there is no punishment, what do you do when someone refuses to comply?
What do you do?
The answer we’ve come up with is burn the witch. And that’s why people like Karen Holloway are sent to the slammer for not mowing the lawn. And tens of thousands of other well-intended regulations that seek to dictate behaviors of others to make them more pleasing to the majority (or the loud minority when the majority says “meh”). From debtors prisons to CEOs of multinationals trying to figure out whether paying the dinner tab will land him in the hoosegow, we’re up to our eyeballs in rules addressing puny aspects of our lives with the bludgeon of criminal sanctions to make us willingly behave.
But hey, as long as the lawn is mowed. Isn’t that really what matters most in America?
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When someone’s lawn gets to deep someone else’s kid gets a tick. Ticks carry lyme disease, did you know that’s potentially fatal? Long grass = attempted murder! Will you please, THINK OF THE CHILDREN!
You have a future as a community activist.
It’s not ticks in the grass I worry about. It’s snakes in the grass, if you catch my drift?
Lyme Disease may indeed be an infectious problem, but I never met anyone who ever had the bloody disease, and I live in New England. Go figure! Is this just another CIA conspiracy? I’ve also followed the medical debate for years, ad nauseam. This means that either (i) I don’t go out in the woods very often or (ii) I don’t socialize that much these days. Both may be the case. Just sayin’!
The “someone did” link has not been properly trimmed.
This post fits in nicely with a couple dozen Harvard professors pondering unintended consequences in an op ed vs. affirmative consent stewards demanding order in the organic vegetable garden via “round up” if necessary, BTW.
P.S. Only three?
Link was already fixed. You’re late to the party. As for “only three,” lawyers aren’t good with numbers. If we were, we’d be doctors.
Enough said I guess? Buy a backhoe or a tractor the six-wheeler has really never been up to the task!
In the quasi-Libertarian paradise of Texas, the exemplars of the third sort of criminal law are private regulations promulgated by homeowner’s associations. The deference the government affords such associations proves that the question of whether or not a free man can sell himself into slavery is not hypothetical.
There is no shortage of Americans who wonder: but how do they do it in Texas?
I have heard people defend such a distinction, on the basis that it is (theoretically, at least) possible to find a house not subject to such HOA restrictions. I suppose I can understand the argument.
The argument that baffled me was from a progressive acquaintance of mine who was fulminating in complaints about some HOA rules. When I concurred, then noted that I knew of cities with statewide rules with criminal punishments for the same offense, he replied that he had no problem with that, since “after all, people had voted for it.”
More true of the HOA, as no one forces you to buy a home in an HOA, but aside from republican rather than democratic lawmaking, 49.99% may not have voted for the person (then multiply by number of votes needed) who supported enactment of a regulation enforced by criminal process.
She should have said that it was a ‘No Grass” or all-natural yard.
That way she could get the busybodies to fight the environmentalists at city hall.
If she weighs as much as a duck, then she must be made of wood. Therefore, she’s a witch!
Yup.
A friend who grew up in Lenoir City informs me that the mayor owns rental property surrounding Karen Holloway’s lot. So this might spill into the 4th kind of crime, offending authoritah.
Well, that adds a bit of spice to the mix if true.
This really is the downfall of modern life, in all Western countries.
I put it all down to effciency in production! In the ’60s we were told machines would do all our work and we would have 4days off a week or more! Sadly unemployment caused by the machines was the result, and I’m convinced that has been soaked up by the public sector. Govts have been hiring more and more “public servants”, and in order to fill the their days they pass more and more laws micromanaging our lives.
I cannot believe that people support this when the world ran quite well 100years ago with only half the laws we have now.. (or thereabouts, I’ll leave the number to you Mr SHG, that’s your Dept.)
What can we do? Every new member of the parasites wants to leave his mark by passing a new law, every subordinate in the paid sector of Govt wants to expand their power, and it all works against the last vestiges of freedom and individual responsibility!
I can’t see democracy pushing back against it, we’ll have to wait for the next system.
An astute observation.
The best programmers are those who can remove the most code without losing any necessary functionality. Seems like a good goal for lawmakers, too.
It sounds like a good life rule for everyone.
So, why don’t they just send notices that the lawn will be mowed at the homeowner’s expense?
The empty home next door to my house is mowed by someone who takes before and after pics to show their work. The homeowner would be charged enough to cover the cost+.
Nope, let’s charge them with a crime and jail (or threaten jail) at a likely higher expense to the people that the fines likely won’t cover. And, there was much celebration….yeeaah.
Then she would be jailed for not paying the bill.