5 ms·

Jaywalking isn't really a crime in MA* so no, you wouldn't get cited at MIT * technically it is, but the fine was set to $1 many years ago in order to effectiv

• runako 10y ago
  Good catch. But it's still roundly unenforced, which was the point. One that still is illegal in Cambridge is underage drinking, and here again the police forces in Cambridge and Boston turn a blind eye instead of making mass arrests every weekend. The point is that behavior is only effectively legal when it's actually legal and not only made so by convention, because relying on convention leads to selective prosecution.
  • deleted 10y ago
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  • eru 10y ago
    By law, German police are required to engage with all crime they are aware off. (But prosecutors have more leeway, and even a mandate to consider the interest of the public when choosing whether to prosecute.) I wonder whether removing the decision making from the police, or at least attempting to, helps in getting laws more evenly enforced.
    • voxic11 10y ago
      In MA jaywalking is a violation of the law and not a crime.
  • spennant 10y ago
    The concept of "Campus Police" allows for Universities to insulate themselves from local laws. Crimes from underage drinking up to rape are generally dealt with internally, in what seems like understanding between the institution an their host cities.
    • koenigdavidmj 10y ago
      The University of Washington's campus police are King County Sheriff's deputies with a different paint job on their car. Is this anomalous for public schools?
      • a2tech 10y ago
        No thats very common. Almost all campus police officers are deputized agents of their host city.
    • runako 10y ago
      We're in violent agreement. We've decided to create special jurisdictions where certain laws are ignored for certain people. Campus Police are basically this practice codified into law and organization. Your student ID is a pass that gives you immunity from prosecution from certain violations.
      • ethbro 10y ago
        Irony: campuses (at least a vast majority of the ones I've been to in urban areas) tend to border higher-crime parts of town and would thus otherwise likely be subject to the same police jurisdiction.
  • jghn 10y ago
    Yeah your point was sound, the example just turned out to be a bad one :) I've literally never seen anyone cited in central square, but I have friends who have been cited in states where jaywalking is still a thing. As a Masshole I've been lucky as I forget it is illegal in some places and will just cross a street if it isn't dangerous for anyone involved.
• ehnto 10y ago
  But does an offence of J walking for someone on probation breach that probation? Genuine question as I don't know. But essentially laws like that become tools with which law enforcement can excercise malice toward individuals if they please. I am reminded of a story of a man out on probation, who used a knife for his work. He had been out for a while, normally the knife was concealed as it's required to be. But it was visible when he was stopped on his way home from work. The state of New York has pretty strict laws at their disposal, and they chose to use them in this case, and the man who had been getting his life back together was thrown back in jail over what is essentially a technicality. Laws that seem harmless and unenforced should be removed, less they be abused. Just like it is best to remove a deprecated function when it's no longer in use, lest it become a risk.
  • Bromskloss 10y ago
    Why is the knife supposed to be concealed? What difference does that make?
    • csixty4 10y ago
      If it's the story I'm thinking of, GP has the details a little mixed up. But it's been a few years since the story broke so that's understandable. The issue was the knife itself being illegal in New York -- a knife that could be bought at almost any hardware or art supply store in the city. Concealed or not, the guy was violating a poorly written law meant to criminalize switchblades in the mid 20th century. But cops had been using it to arrest African American men if they saw the telltale pocket clip while stopping them for something else. They classified this certain kind of utility knife as a "gravity knife", even though it wasn't. The law outlaws knives opened with a flick of the wrist, and it took a cop five tries to flick one open in court once because they aren't designed to be opened that way. But that one time was all it took. To bring this back to the original question: in a just world, an arrest for owning one of these knives -- again, one that you could buy at any hardware store shouldn't violate someone's probation. Neither should jaywalking, something I do countless times a day.
      • 10y ago
• jackhack 10y ago
  Ever wonder why they would leave a toothless law in place like this, rather than strike it from the books? Because it enables detention. Now that the local constable has a legal reason to stop and detain due to the criminal act of jay-walking, a round of questioning and a search for other violations may begin in earnest. It's part of the shakedown machine.
• wcummings 10y ago
  Crossing against the signal is also legal in MA, as long as you're in a crosswalk.