Why is the solution to every social problem more cops, courts and punishments?

Our buddy Charles Kuffner has a couple of posts up at Off the Kuff that, following up on our discussion of Rep. Solomon Ortiz Jr.'s graffiti enhancement bill, made me think this morning about how Democrats (really both parties, but I'm picking on Kuff today) need to revamp their methods to stop using the justice system to address social problems.

If the only tool you own is a hammer, everything looks like a nail, the saying goes. And thus for too long a bipartisan tool shortage has encouraged reformers of all stripes, and from all points on the political spectrum, to reach first for solutions involving police, courts, fines and punishments instead of other less coercive strategies.

Kuff offers up two workaday posts on subjects that even he says should be noncontroversial - opposition to smoking and use of child booster seats in parents' cars. Neither are bad goals in and of themselves. Nearly everyone agrees smoking is bad for you, and few parents will dispute the benefit of booster seats when the case is made for them.

Yet in both instances Kuff suggests using the criminal justice system to impose by force a policy with which most could be convinced to comply on its merits if the case were forthrightly made.

Discouraging smoking and encouraging use of booster seats are meritorious things, but why are fines and criminal enforcement the only way to promote those public goods? I don't think they are. Perhaps this is a case where the road to hell is paved with good intentions?

We are living in an absurdist period of overcriminalization spurred largely by using the justice system to solve social problems that would better be resolved through provision of public services, expanded healthcare access, business regulation, public education and a variety of other means which are too often ignored. Texas has labeled 2,324 separate acts "felonies" (including eleven involving oysters), plus thousands more misdemeanors and many more local, municipal ordinances enforced with Class C fines.

That's not the only possible way to address these problems, though frequently it's the only approach the government and members of both political parties bring forward. At the Legislature, that's because new crimes and punishments are falsely claimed to have zero budget impact, while other options would require lawmakers to weigh the relative importance of social problems against each other in the budget process.

Neither of Kuff's public policy goals inherently require using criminal law enforcement. A smoking ban on restaurants, e.g., to me is an issue for a zoning commission, not the police. (I know Houston doesn't have one, but that's partially because they deal with stuff like this via the cops and homeowners associations instead of code enforcers.)

And with booster seats, why the need for a criminal law and a fine? Is there an assumption by proponents that some parents don't love their children and won't do what's best for them unless coerced through threat of punishment? Perhaps people stopped without a car seat for their five-year-old should simply be given one and sent, safer, on their way?

Chuck's motives are pure and I don't doubt the world would be a better place if more kids had booster seats and fewer people were smokers. But the means of perfecting our society cannot be only criminal punishment of those who fail to comply with what the political class thinks is best for them. That's where Kuff and I part ways on these topics.