You are here

Quality-of-Life Crimes

13 October, 2015 - 16:05

LEARNING OBJECTIVES

  1. Define the criminal act element required for disorderly conduct.
  2. Define the criminal intent element required for disorderly conduct.
  3. Define the attendant circumstance required for disorderly conduct.
  4. Identify potential constitutional challenges to disorderly conduct statutes.
  5. Analyze disorderly conduct grading.
  6. Identify potential constitutional challenges to vagrancy statutes.
  7. Identify potential constitutional challenges to loitering statutes.
  8. Define the elements of loitering, and analyze loitering grading.
  9. Compare sit-lie laws to loitering statutes.

Crimes against the public include offenses that affect the quality of life, group violence such as gang activity, and vice crimes. Because quality-of-life crimes are often based on moral or value judgments, these offenses tend to target the poor and downtrodden. If the conduct prohibited involves an individual’s status in society, assembling, or speech, the First and Fourteenth Amendments require a narrowly tailored statute supported by a compelling government interest. This creates a conflict between legislators trying to ensure peace and tranquility for citizens and judges upholding the many individual protections included in the Bill of Rights.

The quality-of-life offenses discussed are disorderly conduct, vagrancy, and loitering. Upcoming sections analyze crimes involving group activity, such as unlawful assembly and riot, along with the ever-growing problem of criminal gangs, and novel criminal and civil responses. The final section of this chapter discusses common vice crimes, including possession, sale, and use of controlled substances and prostitution.