Is there anyone who could get through a
long life in the modern world without committing a crime? Even if a saint were to walk the Earth, would
he make it from the cradle to the grave without once parking his car in
a no-parking zone, or copying and pasting something off the internet without
carefully checking its copyright status, or without renting a dvd and then
forgetting to return it?
The trouble with writing down a set of laws
is that while they look good on paper, it is impossible to predict all the
random circumstances which might come together to prompt someone to break one
of them.
In the Bible, perhaps the most famous Commandment,
or law, is “Thou shalt not kill.” In
modern English, that would be “You must not kill.” And yet the punishment for breaking this law
in normal circumstances was to be executed.
So there must already be one exception to the law. “Thou shalt not kill, unless you are the
public executioner.” And what about
self-defence? War? Accidentally causing someone’s death through
reckless behaviour like drink-driving?
It would be a tough bureaucracy which treated all of these
circumstances exactly the same, and rigidly applied the letter of the
law.
That’s why I couldn’t help but laugh at a
recent story from America. A man in
North Carolina was driving his daughter to school when he was pulled over by
the police. They stopped him because one
of his brake lights wasn’t working correctly.
When they asked his name, they ran a computer check on him and found
that there was a warrant out for his arrest, which he hadn’t known about. He had rented a VHS (the big tapes we used to
watch movies before DVDs) in 2002 and had failed to return it. The video rental store had in the meantime
gone bankrupt (presumably not just because of this one lost tape). So the criminal mastermind, Mr. James Meyers,
was taken in handcuffs to the local court to face charges.
Mightn’t this be an example of a
bureaucracy trying to rigidly apply the letter of the law, rather than applying
common sense and taking account of the circumstances? Mr. Meyers probably broke the Commandment
“Thou shalt not steal”, but was it really in the public interest to put him in
handcuffs?
Perhaps the most worrying aspect is the way
a minor crime was kept on record and used against him 14 years later. We live in the computer age now. Every little crime you commit, from
accidental copyright violation to unpaid parking tickets or unreturned
library books can be kept on record and used against you. Since even a saint would struggle to get
through life without breaking the law in some circumstances, if they want to
get you for something, I’m sure they’ve got something to get you with. Let’s hope the authorities are always willing
to show a little common sense and decency.
And promise you will never tell anyone
about that book I borrowed from the boy scouts in about 1990 and never returned.
a cradle – a bed or resting place for a
baby
to prompt – to cause or encourage
a Commandment – In the Bible, God gave 10
Commandments, or strict rules of behaviour
a bureaucracy – an organisation for dealing
with laws, rules, paperwork etc.
rigidly – strictly; unbendingly
the letter of the law – the law exactly as
it is written; a literal or strict interpretation of the law
a warrant – a document giving the police
permission to arrest someone
a violation – of a law, rule etc., a case
where it is broken or not correctly followed
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