# Is Committing a Crime a "Right"?
**URL:** https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-committing-a-crime-a-right/817734
**Category:** Great Debates
**Created:** [July 11, 2018, 5:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-committing-a-crime-a-right/817734 "2018-07-11T17:38:43Z")
**Posts on this page:** 20
**Page:** 1
### Author:  [@Bonzi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bonzi)
#### Post date: [July 11, 2018, 5:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-committing-a-crime-a-right/817734/1 "2018-07-11T17:38:43Z")
As human beings, do we have “rights” to do whatever we want?
What exactly is a definition of a “right”?
If you are willing to do the time for a crime, do you not therefore have the “right” to commit that crime as a human being on this planet?
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### Author:  [@Slash1972](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Slash1972)
#### Post date: [July 11, 2018, 5:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-committing-a-crime-a-right/817734/2 "2018-07-11T17:40:14Z")
> [@Bonzi](#):
>
> As human beings, do we have “rights” to do whatever we want?
> What exactly is a definition of a “right”?
>
> If you are willing to do the time for a crime, do you not therefore have the “right” to commit that crime as a human being on this planet?
Does your crime deprive someone else of life or property? If so, then no, you do not have that right.
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### Author:  [@cochrane](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/cochrane)
#### Post date: [July 11, 2018, 5:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-committing-a-crime-a-right/817734/3 "2018-07-11T17:42:10Z")
If you do a crime in the U.S., you have the right to remain silent and to have an attorney present when you are being questioned. If you can’t afford an attorney, you have the right to have one appointed for you. That’s about it.
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### Author:  [@begbert2](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/begbert2)
#### Post date: [July 11, 2018, 5:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-committing-a-crime-a-right/817734/4 "2018-07-11T17:51:41Z")
Pulling from the definition [according to merriam-webster](https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/right), it seems reasonable to define a “right” as “the power or privilege to which one is justly entitled”. One is not “justly entitled” to do whatever they want; there’s pretty much nobody who would agree that in a just world people are granted the privilege to commit crimes. So no, one doesn’t have the right to commit crimes.
However, one could reasonably argue that if one _does_ commit a crime, they have a right to fair punishment (as in, not cruel or unusual). So you don’t have the right to commit a crime, but if you _do_ commit a crime then you have the right to do the time (as opposed to, say, being tortured to death for jaywalking).
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### Author:  [@DavidwithanR](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DavidwithanR)
#### Post date: [July 11, 2018, 7:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-committing-a-crime-a-right/817734/5 "2018-07-11T19:55:10Z")
> [@Bonzi](#):
>
> As human beings, do we have “rights” to do whatever we want?
> What exactly is a definition of a “right”?
>
> If you are willing to do the time for a crime, do you not therefore have the “right” to commit that crime as a human being on this planet?
I get what you mean, but no. When you do something that you had no right to do, then often there is a punishment attached by other people - but the fact that someone punished you doesn’t go back in time and make your action right.
Basically, you have the right to do anything that you think is good for you AND at the same time no one else thinks it would be bad for them if you did it. If it would be bad for them, you don’t have the right anymore. And if you disagree… that’s what governments and laws are for.
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### Author:  [@Snowboarder\_Bo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Snowboarder_Bo)
#### Post date: [July 11, 2018, 9:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-committing-a-crime-a-right/817734/6 "2018-07-11T21:59:24Z")
> [@Bonzi](#):
>
> As human beings, do we have “rights” to do whatever we want?
> What exactly is a definition of a “right”?
>
> If you are willing to do the time for a crime, do you not therefore have the “right” to commit that crime as a human being on this planet?
[I asked the same question a few years back](https://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?t=660085); curious to see new responses here.
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### Author:  [@The\_Other\_Waldo\_Pepper](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/The_Other_Waldo_Pepper)
#### Post date: [July 11, 2018, 10:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-committing-a-crime-a-right/817734/7 "2018-07-11T22:04:54Z")
That could get pretty weird pretty fast: what happens if cops arrive on the scene while someone is trying to murder me? Obviously I disagree that he has the right to murder me, even if he declares that he’s willing to pay the price — but the interesting question is, if you think he _does_ have the right to commit a crime and get punished, can they respond, _yeah, but, see, we’re only offering you that trade for the other thing you’re up to: the attempted murder. That’s fair, right?_
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### Author:  [@Little\_Nemo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Little_Nemo)
#### Post date: [July 11, 2018, 11:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-committing-a-crime-a-right/817734/8 "2018-07-11T23:18:43Z")
> [@Bonzi](#):
>
> If you are willing to do the time for a crime, do you not therefore have the “right” to commit that crime as a human being on this planet?
No, a prison sentence if not a price that you pay for being allowed to commit a crime. It’s not like a toll where you pay fifty cents to cross a bridge.
It’s the exact opposite. The prison sentence is society’s way of telling people that they do not want anyone to commit this crime and they’re serious about it. It’s like a “No Trespassing” sign.
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### Author:  [@Snowboarder\_Bo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Snowboarder_Bo)
#### Post date: [July 11, 2018, 11:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-committing-a-crime-a-right/817734/9 "2018-07-11T23:30:47Z")
> [@The\_Other\_Waldo\_Pepper](#):
>
> That could get pretty weird pretty fast: what happens if cops arrive on the scene while someone is trying to murder me? Obviously I disagree that he has the right to murder me, even if he declares that he’s willing to pay the price — but the interesting question is, if you think he _does_ have the right to commit a crime and get punished, can they respond, _yeah, but, see, we’re only offering you that trade for the other thing you’re up to: the attempted murder. That’s fair, right?_
The question isn’t “is committing _this_ crime a right?” it is “is committing crime a right?” As far as I know, it is not illegal to break the law. There is no extra punishment meted out, for example, for murder because committing murder also broke the law against breaking laws. The law is simply “no murdering”.
So in your hypothetical, he does not have the right to murder you: we have laws against that. And in trying, he exercised his right to break the law, so of course the police would arrest him.
Again: the argument (or question) is not that he has the right to commit a particular crime, but rather that he has the right to disobey the law.
As I wrote six years ago, I have a hard time finding a compelling argument that people do not have a right, implicit, as Mr. Parenti said, to break the law. I’ll re-post the quote from him:
> [@Christian Parenti](#):
>
> In the name of terrorism they want to pursue their pre-existing agenda which is to crack down on the poor and to crack down on the left.
>
> The whole civil liberties debate has always struck me as a little surreal, because there’s something right at the center of it which is never discussed by the civil libertarians and that is our right to commit illegalities.
>
> What are all these constraints on the state about except preserving space for people to break the law? Well, why would that be necessary?
>
> If you look at American history it becomes painfully obvious: from the Boston Tea Party through to the sit down strikes in Flint, Michigan through to the civil rights movement, progress has always been made, in part, by people violating the law. I’m not talking necessarily about violence but I’m talking about breaking the law.
>
> What we’re struggling to protect is our right to violate the law, because there is a recognition built into the law, though unspoken, that the state and it’s agendas are often oppressive and immoral and therefore people have, implicit in civil liberties, the right to violate the law and the right to challenge the state.
>
> And this is true not just for revolutionary struggles but even in reformist struggles: the right to violate the law is central.
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### Author:  [@begbert2](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/begbert2)
#### Post date: [July 11, 2018, 11:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-committing-a-crime-a-right/817734/10 "2018-07-11T23:42:43Z")
I’m not sure it’s _possible_ to have a generic ‘right to break the law’ such as a person could use to justify breaking the law as political protest. As in I’m not sure it’s semantically sensible; the definition of “right” in these contexts seems to inherently fall back on the idea that there is _something_ granting or denying you privileges. To claim that some agency that denies you a privilege is also granting you the right to ignore its denials is self-contradictory.
What you _can_ have, though, is a situation where multiple authority-granting agencies are in conflict about what rights you have. For example, one could presume that there’s a sort of moral authority, either granted by a god or by the notion that society itself grants you the right to do things favorable to society. In these cases one could reasonably claim to have the moral right to break civil laws or exercise civil rights that they don’t have - if you consider moral authority to supersede civil authority.
Of course if you want anybody to be impressed by such declarations as you’re dragged off to jail, it would help if you can cite a plausible superseding authority. I’m not sure I can think of one that could credibly justify crime in general.
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### Author:  [@CCitizen](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CCitizen)
#### Post date: [July 12, 2018, 10:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-committing-a-crime-a-right/817734/11 "2018-07-12T22:47:34Z")
> [@Bonzi](#):
>
> As human beings, do we have “rights” to do whatever we want?
> What exactly is a definition of a “right”?
>
> If you are willing to do the time for a crime, do you not therefore have the “right” to commit that crime as a human being on this planet?
It is not a “right” but a wrong. Some crimes like theft carry almost no penalty and are rarely prosecuted.
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### Author:  [@CCitizen](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CCitizen)
#### Post date: [July 12, 2018, 10:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-committing-a-crime-a-right/817734/12 "2018-07-12T22:49:56Z")
> [@Slash1972](#):
>
> Does your crime deprive someone else of life or property? If so, then no, you do not have that right.
Even stealing from billionaire is a crime. Not paying taxes is a crime. I am not sure how wrong it is,but it is not a right.
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### Author:  [@Little\_Nemo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Little_Nemo)
#### Post date: [July 12, 2018, 11:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-committing-a-crime-a-right/817734/13 "2018-07-12T23:16:20Z")
> [@Snowboarder\_Bo](#):
>
> The question isn’t “is committing _this_ crime a right?” it is “is committing crime a right?” As far as I know, it is not illegal to break the law. There is no extra punishment meted out, for example, for murder because committing murder also broke the law against breaking laws. The law is simply “no murdering”.
We have something like that in the New York prison system. We have a list of departmental regulations that prisoners must comply with. It may not technically be a set of laws, depending on how you define that, but the enforcement can reach all the way up to spending more time in prison.
And one of the departmental regulations is that a prisoner cannot break any laws. So a prisoner could be arrested for breaking some law, convicted of the crime, and then face a departmental hearing for having broken the law with his conviction being entered as evidence.
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### Author:  [@Bryan\_Ekers](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bryan_Ekers)
#### Post date: [July 13, 2018, 12:09am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-committing-a-crime-a-right/817734/14 "2018-07-13T00:09:42Z")
The only way I can mentally gymnasticize the OP’s premise is to consider that in a liberal democracy, there’s little or no place for the concept of “prior restraint”, in the sense that even if the authorities strongly suspect you will commit a crime in the future, they can’t pre-emptively lock you up. It gets murky if they think you pose an “imminent” threat, but beyond that you’re free to plan your crime as long as you like, up until the moment you actually start to commit it or conspire with another person to commit it. Only then can the state act against you.
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### Author:  [@PatrickLondon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/PatrickLondon)
#### Post date: [July 13, 2018, 5:54am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-committing-a-crime-a-right/817734/15 "2018-07-13T05:54:06Z")
Rights come from living in society (if we didn’t there’d be no point in the concept), and living in society brings responsibilities: at the root of which is respecting the rights of others in the society.
Or in other words, punishment for a crime isn’t a “price” for exercising a right, it’s the consequence of breaching someone else’s rights.
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### Author:  [@I\_Love\_Me\_Vol.I](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/I_Love_Me_Vol.I)
#### Post date: [July 13, 2018, 8:24am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-committing-a-crime-a-right/817734/16 "2018-07-13T08:24:59Z")
> [@begbert2](#):
>
> Of course if you want anybody to be impressed by such declarations as you’re dragged off to jail, it would help if you can cite a plausible superseding authority. I’m not sure I can think of one that could credibly justify crime in general.
Batman?
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### Author:  [@Snowboarder\_Bo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Snowboarder_Bo)
#### Post date: [July 14, 2018, 2:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-committing-a-crime-a-right/817734/17 "2018-07-14T14:48:05Z")
> [@Little\_Nemo](#):
>
> We have something like that in the New York prison system. We have a list of departmental regulations that prisoners must comply with. It may not technically be a set of laws, depending on how you define that, but the enforcement can reach all the way up to spending more time in prison.
>
> And one of the departmental regulations is that a prisoner cannot break any laws. So a prisoner could be arrested for breaking some law, convicted of the crime, and then face a departmental hearing for having broken the law with his conviction being entered as evidence.
See, that’s dystopian weirdness and should be stopped, IMO.
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### Author:  [@septimus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/septimus)
#### Post date: [July 14, 2018, 6:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-committing-a-crime-a-right/817734/18 "2018-07-14T18:23:57Z")
‘Right’ is a word charged with emotion, political bias, and ambiguity. Some Americans would even use it as an excuse to segue into a discussion of Jehovah and His Plan for Mankind.
Best is to rephrase any serious question to avoid use of this term or its synonyms.
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### Author:  [@elucidator](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/elucidator)
#### Post date: [July 14, 2018, 6:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-committing-a-crime-a-right/817734/19 "2018-07-14T18:30:28Z")
Sometimes, breaking the law is a duty. Far too often.
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### Author:  [@UDS](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/UDS)
#### Post date: [July 23, 2018, 3:51am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-committing-a-crime-a-right/817734/20 "2018-07-23T03:51:18Z")
> [@elucidator](#):
>
> Sometimes, breaking the law is a duty. Far too often.
Maybe, but a duty is not a right.
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