An ill-advised Connecticut law helps explain why incarceration rates are so high in the U.S.

What are you in for? “I sent spam to kids.”

You monster!

Ever wonder why America has more people in jail than any other country, including China? Or why the United States has the highest incarceration rate of any country on earth? Here’s why: We ignore our Constitution and pass stupid laws.

Here’s the most recent example: A new Connecticut proposal would create a do-not-call list for children, including their cellphone numbers and e-mail addresses. Companies looking to spam your kids would have to scrub their databases by submitting what they have to the registry maintainers, who would then flag the offending entries. It’s a proposal that epitomizes how laws get proposed and passed nowadays. I will reveal the algorithm to you.

First, start with the children. Everyone wants to protect the children. You can try to substitute animals, minorities, the working poor, or the handicapped, though it’s not as surefire.

Next, find some threat to them. Novices look for real threats of harm, like gang violence or car accidents. Professional lawmakers are not so limited. For them, imagined threats are just as good, like low self-esteem or going to hell if they hear about Darwin.

Now the fun part: thinking up “good ideas.” Wouldn’t it be a “good idea” to get rid of guns? Make cars drive slower? Have teachers focus on self-esteem? Teach kids alternative theories to evolution?

The distance from “good idea” to “law proposal” is thinner than a knife edge. It’s literally nothing more than applying force to get your desire result. Let’s make guns illegal! Impose speed limits! Leave no child behind! Authorize creationism in the curriculum!

There is only one thing standing in the way of the proposal becoming actual law: How many people would be immediately and directly affected by it? I believe there’s a magic number involved here: If fewer than 20 percent of the people are affected, the proposal has a strong chance to become law, no matter how inane. But if more than 20 percent are affected, it’s not likely to happen.

Why 20 percent? Because people vote. Even if the law proposed is not on a referendum, and even if there is no election this year, eventually, in the long run, people make their voices felt, one way or another. Why is the magic number as small as one in five? Because typically only half the people vote anyway. So of the 50 percent that vote, you need the support of more than half of them. Plus, most of the immediately and directly affected people are more likely to vote, so you need a cushion for that.

How does this apply to our examples? In most times and places, fewer than one in five own guns, so laws regulating gun ownership are quick to pass, even if they are unconstitutional. But far more people drive cars, so it’s much harder to pass onerous driving restrictions.

In the latest example, we start, as always, with the poor, innocent, defenseless children. You don’t want them stalked by predators and child molesters, do you? What kind of heartless person are you? Plus, you don’t want greedy marketers finding them and trying to push video games and blue jeans on them. So: wouldn’t it be a good idea to make it illegal for marketers to call children?

Oh, wait. That would mean virtually everybody is immediately and directly affected.

How about making it optional, so that parents can add their children’s info to the registry, but are not obligated to?

There you go: that’s less than 20 percent. The law is all but on the books.

Never mind that all taxpayers will have to pay the cost of prosecuting, jailing and rehabilitating those pesky marketers who flout the law and call or e-mail kids anyway.

Never mind that this is the sort of thing a voluntary, private organization can and should do. Never mind that everybody already has caller-id and spam filters.

And certainly never mind that the government is too big already precisely because of such thinking.

No, it’s a “good idea” and so we have to lose a little bit more freedom. A little here, a little there, none of which is worth fighting over. It’s how we got to where we are today, paying half as much to the government as we take home for ourselves, and having 25 percent of all the world’s prisoners despite having only 5 percent of the world’s population.

phil@maymin.com
This article originally appeared in Fairfield County Weekly on January 5, 2007