Criminals

Somebody within earshot of me today was talking about 'those kids who think they're criminals because they do drugs will eventually grow out of it" and I think that's a fundamental misinterpretation of why some people do drugs.

Even a fundamental misinterpretation of what makes a criminal, really. I'm not going to get social justice all up in here, or political up in here, but it /did/ inspire a bit of a creative writing exercise. Everything from this point is not to be taken as my personal opinion or a statement of my position. Seriously.

For starters, what leads somebody to label themselves a criminal? Committing criminal acts is not always enough, right? I know people who break water restrictions, people who have cheated (slightly) on their taxes, people who owe money to friends or who hold events without insurance or what-have-you, and these people would never dream of calling themselves criminals. Would we? Probably not, right? It stands to reason that we'd extend the same courtesy to ourselves. Turn a blind eye to our own breaches of conduct, our own minute violations of the law. Indeed, most everybody is a criminal, and most everybody says that they are not. Why, then, refer to yourself as a criminal? 

Perhaps it's a by-product of being shoehorned into a society that doesn't exist for you, or doesn't exist to support you, or actively opposes you. What if you figure that out from a young age? What if every time you breach the rules, every time you do something that isn't the norm...well, you can't be a criminal, right? Because we're still acting under the assumption that the people we're around aren't criminals, because if they're criminals for their tiny errors, we're criminals. And so your parents will say 'it was a mistake' or your teacher will say 'that's not how it's supposed to be' and the society you live in will do your best to shut down your deviancy and make you get back into line so it can get back to pretending that you're not different, that you're not a lawbreaker, that you're not a criminal. Remember, they have a vested interest in their friends, neighbors  students, constituents, whatever - a vested interest in their society not being populated by criminals. Criminals are Other. Criminals deserve punishment. Criminals are wrong.

What if that deviancy was calculated? What if you were different by choice? What if you did drugs because you believed it to be a fundamental human right to tinker with your own consciousness? What if you don't vote because you don't believe? What if you trespass regularly because your rightful land was stolen from you? What if, if you want to get fancy, there was a strong ideological rejection behind your criminal activity? Would that be a reason to call yourself a criminal, to get other people to acknowledge that you were a criminal? If, for example, I were into drugs, would calling myself a criminal be remarkably pretentious, as this person I mentioned at the top there is implying? Or would it be a reclamation of the word 'criminal', forcing others to acknowledge that I am a criminal by virtue of my ideological dedication to my cause? Shouldn't we respect that declaration of difference, the choice to wear that label, to identify with that strong sense of opposition to a society that marginalizes or demonizes our behaviours whilst denying that those behaviours are present throughout itself? I mean, what about homosexuality in countries the world over that demonize it? If the oppressed choose to label themselves criminals, shouldn't we take this declaration seriously?

I mean, this is all hypothetical, of course. I'm not saying that I commit illegal acts. But it's food for thought, isn't it?