Will Grigg?s Liberty Minute

November 17, 2011

The ?legitimate? purpose of government, we are constantly told, is to protect life and property against criminal violence and fraud. If this were true, it would follow that most of those arrested by police and punished by the so-called justice system would be guilty of crimes against person and property.

According to the most recent available statistics regarding incarceration, however, people convicted of actual crimes compose a very small minority of America?s vast and growing federal prison population. Crimes of violence accounted for roughly eight percent of that total, and property crimes contributed a bit less than six percent. More than half of all inmates were convicted of non-violent drug offenses, and thirty-five percent were caged for what are called ?public order? offenses.

All told, eighty-six percent of all federal inmates committed what are called ?victimless crimes? ? that is to say, offenses not properly described as crimes at all. It is reasonable to assume that similar trends exist at the state and local level as well.

There are instances in which police act in defense of persons and property. Those are genuinely exceptional, because they are not part of their job description: The Supreme Court has repeatedly ruled that police have no enforceable duty to protect individual rights.

Why, then, do they exist at all?

Let us take back the liberty wherewith Christ has made us free.