A Historian Reads: Sin No More

In a class about vice crime, we were assigned to read our own professor's book. At first this came across as somewhat narcissistic and self serving, until I read it and realized that it was a great book. Sin No More: From Abortion to Stem Cells, Understanding Crime, Law, and Morality in America by Drs. John Dombrink (my wonderful professor) and Daniel Hillyard explores the space where morality and the law intersect. In criminology, there is a distinction made between crimes with victims (murder, assault, burglary etc) and those that are victim-less, otherwise known as vice crimes. Crimes with victims are generally not dispute about their status as a crime. It is hard to argue that murder is something we should allow as a society. Vice crimes, however, are less black and white. They bring up questions about morality, the role of government to enforce morality, and the purpose of the law.

As seen in the subtitle, this book covers topics as diverse as abortion, stem cells, marriage equality, gambling, and others. Both authors take a historical perspective to the topics and divide each chapter by type of vice crime. They then explore the historical development of the vice crime including how they came to be (or in some cases, reappeared), their origins with specific ethnic groups or social classes, the legislation written in response and modern debates surrounding their legality or illegality. In doing so, the authors bring out the nuances and unique debates that each topic creates rather than generalizing patterns of legalization and criminalization.

From Stonewall to the Facebook trend.
Dombrink and Hillyard note that on a whole,
trends are in favor of decriminalization. 

However, there is a greater overarching lesson to be learned through their historical and sociological analysis. Regardless of what vice crime you focus on, there is a national trend towards becoming more tolerant of these behaviors and peeling back the legislation that wastes money towards prosecuting victim-less crimes. Despite, social conservative cries about the decaying morality of the United States, it would appear that we are just becoming more tolerant of these former "immoral" behaviors in a healthy fashion. Just as legalizing heroin in Portugal did not cause the entire tiny nation to become heroin users, and legalizing gay marriage in most of Europe did not result in every getting gay married, so shall the United States pass into a state that worries less about their neighbor's behavior inside their home and focuses on actual physical crimes in which victims are due their justice.

Because I had Dr. Dombrink as a professor, I got the opportunity to talk with him a lengths about his approach to law, crime, and society. Something unique about his approach is that he is very aware of the left right paradigm that exists within a lot of research and views this as a biased way to treat the American public. He acknowledges the variety and hybrid political views that Americans have and uses this to hone his analysis. Rather than see increased tolerance as a rise in liberal thought, he instead sees it as a rise in individualist and libertarian ideas that he views as a common feature of millennials, regardless of the political affiliation. This new (at the time of publication in 2007) approach lends itself to a less political analysis and a more human one. Dombrink and Hillyard see these trends as reflective of humanity rather than of any political or economic development. At the end, the authors are positive and hopeful for the American political scene and trust that as people become less judgmental and less interested in controlling the behavior of others so shall the system slide in their favor.