Even unenforceable vice laws retained real deterrent bite through selective enforcement

Evidence

But conformity in behavior, as well as on paper? If millions of high-​minded people condemned brothels and saloons, other millions (openly and not so openly) were eager customers. It was one thing to pass laws about morality; enforcement was quite another. Theodore Roosevelt’s failure in New York was one of many defeats, then and later. The reader in the twenty-​first century does not have to be told that crusades against vice never quite succeed; all the Prohibitions, of whatever stamp, have tasted the bitter fruit of failure. Vice is hydra-​headed: chop off one head, another grows back. On the other hand, even “unenforceable” laws are never uniformly unenforced. A symbol loses power when it is only a symbol and nothing more. But vice laws and laws against victimless crime in general were never purely symbolic. They meant something. They had some bite, at least at particular times and places. Who knows how many people avoided, say, brothels, because they were afraid of a possible raid or a crackdown, or because of a sense of shame? — Lawrence M. Friedman, A History of American Law, 3360

Categorization

• XREF: connects to: Equal operation of law prevents officials escaping political backlash through selective enforcement. — Henry M. Hart, Jr. and Albert M. Sacks, The Legal Process: Basic Problems in…, 202; Nineteenth-century vice laws against adultery went largely unenforced in practice — Lawrence M. Friedman and Grant M. Hayden, American Law: An Introduction, 817; America’s unenforced vice laws existed because all classes wanted official morality preserved — Lawrence M. Friedman, A History of American Law, 3335 (+9 more)

Broader Connections

• Even weakly enforced laws redirect how violations occur #expands (0.85) — Lawrence M. Friedman and Grant M. Hayden, American Law, 1046
• Laws shape behavior even among those who violate them #corroborates (0.80) — Lawrence M. Friedman and Grant M. Hayden, American Law, 1047
• Deterrence can operate as an unintended byproduct of other actions #expands (0.75) — Thomas C. Schelling, The Strategy of Conflict, 422
• Late-twentieth-century law decriminalized what Victorian vice laws had criminalized #qualifies (0.75) — Lawrence M. Friedman, A History of American Law, 4293
• Penal reform succeeded by managing illegalities differentially, not eliminating them #corroborates (0.75) — Michel Foucault, Discipline & Punish- The Birth of the…, 144
• Moral self-sanctions and social censure deter crime more than legal penalties do #complicates (0.72)
• Popular illegality formed a continuum running from tolerated evasion to outright crime #qualifies (0.72) — Michel Foucault, Discipline & Punish- The Birth of the…, 139
• Punishment’s deterrent power migrated from visible spectacle to certainty of apprehension #complicates (0.70) — Michel Foucault, Discipline & Punish- The Birth of the…, 45
• An irreversible visible act can lock in a commitment without legal enforcement #expands (0.70) — Russell Hardin, Trust and Trustworthiness, 241