MUCH EFFORT SPENT ON VICTIMLESS CRIMES

Noting the "crimes" covered by the Daily News in the September 24th
paper:

Someone might be fined for feeding deer.

A 73-year-old man was busted for growing pot for his own
use.

A 13-year-old boy may be charged for showing his pocket knife to some
kids.

A woman who embezzled $124,000 is forced to pay it
back.

And a stolen poodle.

The stolen poodle sounds most serious to me, although it probably will
have the least energetic police response. The rest of these so-called
crimes share a common characteristic: they don't seem to have a
victim. Why is so much of our money used to prosecute people who have
not harmed anyone?

It might be argued that stealing $124,000 was substantial, but I don't
see any evidence that any of the workers or owners of the company had
to skip a meal because of the theft.

We could save a lot of money, time and energy by requiring that a
particular crime be shown to have a victim, or at least has
inconvenienced some law-abiding citizen. Police would then be able to
concentrate on serious offenses, and the public would be more apt to
help them catch criminals if they weren't busting people for trivial
and non-invasive offenses.

The best way to reduce crime is to abolish unjust, trivial and
obsolete laws.

Jim Erkiletian

Nanaimo