“Stigma Dilution, Over-Criminalization, and Some Additional Reasons to Decriminalize Marijuana Possession and Consumption Offenses”

The title of this post is the title of this notable new paper by Murat Mungan now available via SSRN. Here is the abstract:

Criminalizing an act that provides weak signals about a person’s productivity and character can dilute the stigma attached to having a criminal record.  This reduces the deterrence of serious crimes that do provide strong signals regarding the offender’s character.  Over-criminalization occurs when the costs associated with reduced deterrence due to stigma dilution off-set potential benefits associated with criminalizing the less harmful act.

Identifying and analyzing the factors that affect the likelihood of over-criminalization reveal that the penalization of marijuana possession and consumption most likely constitutes over-criminalization.  The normative desirability of various practices in criminal law (e.g. the felony murder rule, conspiracy liabilities, scienters, mens rea requirements, expungements) are also discussed vis-à-vis their impacts on stigma dilution.