A late-nineteenth-century crusade criminalized victimless vices like obscenity and gambling

Evidence

The situation changed rather dramatically, beginning in the late nineteenth century. There was a new birth of interest in outlawing and punishing victimless crime. In 1873, Congress passed the so-​called Comstock Law, which made it a federal crime to mail any “obscene, lewd, or lascivious” book, or “any article or thing … for the prevention of conception.” In 1895, Congress prohibited the interstate sale of lottery tickets. In 1907, Arkansas passed a law making it a crime to manufacture, sell, or give away “any cigarettes or cigarette wrappers or papers to any person.” — Lawrence M. Friedman and Grant M. Hayden, American Law, 818

Categorization

• XREF: connects to: Nineteenth-century vice laws against adultery went largely unenforced in practice — Lawrence M. Friedman and Grant M. Hayden, American Law: An Introduction, 817; Laws are symptoms of social morality, not its cause — Lawrence M. Friedman and Grant M. Hayden, American Law: An Introduction, 823; Late-twentieth-century law decriminalized what Victorian vice laws had criminalized — Lawrence M. Friedman, A History of American Law, 4293 (+6 more)

Broader Connections

• Late-twentieth-century law decriminalized what Victorian vice laws had criminalized #expands (0.95) — Lawrence M. Friedman, A History of American Law, 4293
• Laws against sex and vice resurged strongly in late nineteenth-century America #corroborates (0.95) — Lawrence M. Friedman, A History of American Law, 3323
• Victorian America criminalized only public, notorious sin rather than private vice #contradicts (0.90) — Lawrence M. Friedman, A History of American Law, 3324
• Neoliberalism inverted the moral status of gambling from vice to virtue #complicates (0.75) — Philip Mirowski, Never Let a Serious Crisis Go to Waste, 345
• Nineteenth-century courts inverted law so crimes imply possible insanity #responds-to (0.72) — Michel Foucault, Discipline & Punish- The Birth of the…, 59
• Bourgeoisie aestheticized crime to mask their own practiced illegalities #complicates (0.70) — Michel Foucault, Discipline & Punish- The Birth of the…, 435