Crime and Punishment

Glenn Reynolds has a TCS Article that is a must read. Excerpt:

I"t's been pretty much the same story everywhere else. Where once 'felony' meant things like murder, rape, or armed robbery, now it includes things like music piracy, or filling in potholes that turn out to be 'wetlands.' As the title to a recent book edited by Gene Healy notes, we've achieved the criminalization of almost everything. Which means, in fact, the criminalization of almost everyone, too -- if you haven't been convicted of some felony or other, it's probably because no prosecutor has tried to put you away, not because you haven't committed one, whether you realized it at the time or not.

I think a good start to reforming the system would be getting rid of some of the lower rank drug crimes, as felonies at least. A better start would be decriminalizing marijuana. But, as Glenn points out, the problem of minor moral failings being felonies and things that shouldn't be crimes at all being misdemeanors is common throughout the criminal code.