Our addiction to criminalising human behaviour makes a mockery of private responsibility | Simon Jenkins | Comment is free | The Guardian

Our addiction to criminalising human behaviour makes a mockery of private responsibility | Simon Jenkins | Comment is free | The Guardian



Our addiction to criminalising human behaviour makes a mockery of private responsibility | Simon Jenkins | http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2014/nov/06/addiction-criminalising-behaviour-private-responsibility



"The mob craving to bring coercive law into every realm of human behaviour has long troubled ethicists. Oxford’s Jonathan Glover sought to apply moral precepts to everyday life in his excellent book, Causing Death and Saving Lives. He quoted from Karamazov the brother’s euphoric cry that “everyone is responsible for everyone else and in every way”. It was, he said, heavy with “nightmare implication”.



Such paternalism – or perhaps control freakery – led the last Labour government to create 4,300 new offences through 50 criminal justice acts."