My response to the VOCM question 'Do you think there should be stricter fines for pet owners who don't clean up after their animals?'

Hello everyone, here is my response to this VOCM question that was posted on the site Wednesday, August 29th 2007:

'Hey everyone, this discussion we are having now reminds me of the two 'theories of law' I learned about in my Law and Society 2000 class at MUN over the summer. According to my prof. (Ray Critch, a rather bright young prof. at MUN), there are two basic theories of why the law exists: emotive theory and rational theory (closely associated with rational choice theory: the basis of economics).

In the first theory (emotive theory), laws exists because people tend to act on their emotions and if the state didn't impose penalties on those who break the law, people might take the law into their own hands (this is something that often happened in tribal societies: does the term 'Family Feud' ring a bell, whereby one person does a wrong to another family member and it continues on generation after generation?)According to this theory, the solution to the problem of leaving dog poop where it doesn't belong is to increase enforcement of the visible fines, and if necessary, to increase the fines until the rate of these occurences decreases.Although, take a look at the following comment 'Date: 8/29/2007
Name: Rural Dweller
Comments:
Urban centres are quite capable of managing doggy doo without general input from everyone. Let's not have another frustrated bunch of city dwellers legislate that people in rural areas use plastic baggies to pick up environmentally friendly doggy doo using environmentally contaminating non-biodegradable plastic to do so.'

If i'm not mistaken, when the provincial government passes a law, it can make expections. For example, perhaps there could be a provision in the law stating that in order for the law NOT to take effect in a community, the Town or City Council would have to pass a resolution stating that they don't want this law to apply in their community and would rather use muncipal by-laws to curve the problem.

The second theory (rational theory/ rational choice theory) holds that since people are rational, before commiting an offence, people do a cost-benefit analysis of the benefits versus the costs: if the costs outweigh the benefits, people are more likely NOT to commit the crime. So in this case, the pain caused by the fines, the subsequent public humilation,etc.. would have to outweigh the benefits of not having to take a moment to scoop the poop up!

I really hope this comment helps inform the discussion!'

Oops, I guess I forgot to mention that reconcilation is also part of both theories: in emotive theory, reconcilation occurs when 'the punishment meets the crime'. In other words, when the punishment for a crime is equal to how offensive the public finds that crime. According to rational choice theory, reconcilation happens when the individual realizes that either they were acting irrationally, learned to think about the crime in a way that will prevent them from re-offending and realizing that the fines/punishment was in place to try to prevent them from offending in the first place.

Once again, it amazes me how doing a course at MUN such as Law and Society 2000 has allowed me to understand various legal and societal issues occuring in places like Canada!