Chapter 15 Crimes Against Public Order And Morality

Contemporary Law Chapter 15 CRIMES AGAINST PUBLIC ORDER AND MORALITY
Crimes against public order and morality are intended to insure that individuals walking on sidewalks, traveling on the streets, or enjoying the public parks and facilities are free from harassment, fear, threat, and alarm. This category of crime includes a large number of seemingly unrelated offenses that threaten the public peace, quiet, and tranquility. The challenge presented by these offenses is to balance public order and morals with the right of individuals to exercise their civil liberties. A prime example of a crime against public order is individual disorderly conduct. This broadly defined offense involves acts that create public inconvenience and annoyance by directly
These offenses include public drunkenness, vagrancy, loitering, panhandling, graffiti, and urinating and sleeping in public. A significant number of arrests and prosecutions are devoted to these crimes against the quality of life, but for the most part, they receive limited attention because they are misdemeanors, are swiftly disposed of in summary trials before local judges, and disproportionately target young people, minorities, and individuals from lower socioeconomic backgrounds. In the 1980s, scholars began to argue that seemingly unimportant offenses against the public order and morals were key to understanding why some neighborhoods bred crime and hopelessness while other areas prospered. This so-called broken windows theory is identified with criminologists James Q. Wilson and George Kelling. Why the name broken windows? Wilson and Kelling argue that if one window in a building is broken and left unrepaired, this sends a signal that no one cares about the house and that soon every window will be broken. The same process of decay is at work in a neighborhood. A home is abandoned, weeds sprout, the windows are smashed, and graffiti is sprayed on the building. Rowdy teenagers, drunks, and drug addicts are drawn to the abandoned structure and surrounding street. Residents find themselves confronting panhandlers, drunks, and addicts and develop apprehension about walking down the street
Loitering is a related offense defined as standing in public with no apparent purpose. The early vagrancy statutes were passed in reaction to the end of the feudal system and required the vast army of individuals wandering the countryside to seek employment. These same laws were relied on during the labor shortage resulting from the Black Death in the fourteenth century to force individuals into the labor market. There was also the fear that these bands of men might loiter or gather together to engage in crime or