Even weakly enforced laws redirect how violations occur

Evidence

Many “dead” laws are not, after all, as dead as we may think. Even during Prohibition many people (perhaps most) obeyed the law. And the law had an important effect on legal behavior, including the behavior of people who regularly broke the law: it changed the time, manner, and mode of their drinking. After all, before Prohibition, it was legal to drink openly or in public, in saloons and taverns. During Prohibition, drinking had to be kept more or less secret. Today, even in states where laws against marijuana are enforced very weakly, nobody dares light up in front of a police officer at high noon. Similarly, nobody drives a hundred miles an hour when the police are around, and where the speed limit is officially sixty-​five. — Lawrence M. Friedman and Grant M. Hayden, American Law, 1046

Categorization

• XREF: connects to: Laws shape behavior even among those who violate them — Lawrence M. Friedman and Grant M. Hayden, American Law: An Introduction, 1047; Legislative inaction is itself a distinct technique of control — Henry M. Hart, Jr. and Albert M. Sacks, The Legal Process: Basic Problems in…, 728; A rule only counts when enforced in practice — Lawrence M. Friedman and Grant M. Hayden, American Law: An Introduction, 54 (+4 more)

Broader Connections

• Regulatory exemptions function as exploitable loopholes undermining enforcement #expands (0.85) — Albert Bandura, Moral Disengagement, 1536
• Codified legal codes deter crime through abstract certainty of punishment #qualifies (0.78)