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I think you are fundamentally misunderstanding the purpose of these laws. With civil statutes, the objective is not to fully extinguish behaviors like jaywalki

I think you are fundamentally misunderstanding the purpose of these laws. With civil statutes, the objective is not to fully extinguish behaviors like jaywalking, but to provide law-enforcement with tools to maintain order. Most officers don't run around citing people for every violation they spot. They instead look for people who are behaving in a way that is dangerous or disorderly, and then use the law to reign them in. This kind of automation gets that relationship exactly backwards, and is not the basis of a healthy balance between freedom and order.

sneak 6y ago
> With civil statutes, the objective is not to fully extinguish behaviors like jaywalking, but to provide law-enforcement with tools to maintain order. Most officers don't run around citing people for every violation they spot. They instead look for people who are behaving in a way that is dangerous or disorderly, and then use the law to reign them in. It's not about "maintaining order". These laws serve as a legitimate cover story for police to harass indiscriminately, as they are widely disregarded, giving a blank check to police to stop and harass anyone based on their own hunches, biases, or prejudice. It's a bad system, and it has nothing to do with maintaining order, and everything to do with legitimizing police misconduct.
- omginternets 6y ago
  Yes, this stuff happens, yes it's a consequence of calling upon LEO to make judgement calls, and it's a real problem, and yes it's worth fixing. It is not, however -- by any stretch of the imagination -- the goal of civil statutes to enable indiscriminate harassment. Your anti-cop ideology is leaking. It's unoriginal, uninsightful, and unhelpful.
  - sneak 6y ago
    > It is not, however -- by any stretch of the imagination -- the goal of civil statutes to enable indiscriminate harassment. Do you have any evidence to support this claim? There's plenty to support the idea that these non-crimes exist on the books specifically to enable police to target so-called "undesirables" who would otherwise be breaking no law: https://lbpost.com/longbeachize/opinion/the-classist-racist-history-of-jaywalking-and-why-policing-it-should-stop https://lbpost.com/longbeachize/opinion/the-classist-racist-...
riekus 6y ago
I wish this was true. But in reality, in my experience in the Netherlands and in Australia, tickets get written because x, y says so. Not because you were or weren't doing anyy reckless. And we are conditioned by this, I am really dumbfounded when people are not jaywalking in the middle of the night in an empty street. And personally I am glad to take that ticket risk.
- omginternets 6y ago
  >But in reality, in my experience in the Netherlands and in Australia, tickets get written because x, y says so. Not because you were or weren't doing anyy reckless. Yes, we can certainly agree that this "anti-pattern" occurs, and that it's a perversion of the system. I've been on the receiving end of some technically-correct-but-not-helping-anyone tickets myself. On the whole, however, it is my feeling that police operate as described above. More to the point, it is not the purpose of these laws to fully suppress the behavior they punish. When applied in a manner to do so, it is a perversion.

sneak 6y ago

> With civil statutes, the objective is not to fully extinguish behaviors like jaywalking, but to provide law-enforcement with tools to maintain order. Most officers don't run around citing people for every violation they spot. They instead look for people who are behaving in a way that is dangerous or disorderly, and then use the law to reign them in. It's not about "maintaining order". These laws serve as a legitimate cover story for police to harass indiscriminately, as they are widely disregarded, giving a blank check to police to stop and harass anyone based on their own hunches, biases, or prejudice. It's a bad system, and it has nothing to do with maintaining order, and everything to do with legitimizing police misconduct.

omginternets 6y ago
Yes, this stuff happens, yes it's a consequence of calling upon LEO to make judgement calls, and it's a real problem, and yes it's worth fixing. It is not, however -- by any stretch of the imagination -- the goal of civil statutes to enable indiscriminate harassment. Your anti-cop ideology is leaking. It's unoriginal, uninsightful, and unhelpful.
- sneak 6y ago
  > It is not, however -- by any stretch of the imagination -- the goal of civil statutes to enable indiscriminate harassment. Do you have any evidence to support this claim? There's plenty to support the idea that these non-crimes exist on the books specifically to enable police to target so-called "undesirables" who would otherwise be breaking no law: https://lbpost.com/longbeachize/opinion/the-classist-racist-history-of-jaywalking-and-why-policing-it-should-stop https://lbpost.com/longbeachize/opinion/the-classist-racist-...

riekus 6y ago

I wish this was true. But in reality, in my experience in the Netherlands and in Australia, tickets get written because x, y says so. Not because you were or weren't doing anyy reckless. And we are conditioned by this, I am really dumbfounded when people are not jaywalking in the middle of the night in an empty street. And personally I am glad to take that ticket risk.

omginternets 6y ago
>But in reality, in my experience in the Netherlands and in Australia, tickets get written because x, y says so. Not because you were or weren't doing anyy reckless. Yes, we can certainly agree that this "anti-pattern" occurs, and that it's a perversion of the system. I've been on the receiving end of some technically-correct-but-not-helping-anyone tickets myself. On the whole, however, it is my feeling that police operate as described above. More to the point, it is not the purpose of these laws to fully suppress the behavior they punish. When applied in a manner to do so, it is a perversion.