Who do you think breaks the law in our society? If you believe that only tough guys commit crimes, you may have to think again. Answer the following questions honestly. Has anyone you know ever driven drunk? Can you think of a friend who has used drugs? Are you aware that your parents may not always tell the truth when they go through customs? Won't some of your friends admit that they have stolen an item from a store? Have any of your friends ever copied a CD onto a tape for someone else?

In case you did not know, all of these acts are against the law. Now, among the people you know, how many have never broken the law? Does that mean that most members of our society should go to jail? Unlike in the movies, we can't divide the world into bad guys and model citizens. Real life is much more complex. In the same way that diseases range from the common cold to fatal forms of cancer, crimes vary in degree. For example, smoking in an elevator will inconvenience people, but much less than threatening them with a gun.

In addition to breaking the law themselves, people tolerate various levels of crime. Why are we tolerant of some crimes? It may be that, by seeing others do something, we accept it more easily. We may even start committing that crime ourselves. For instance, most people will find it easier to speed on a highway when everybody else is driving over the speed limit. When people celebrate a sports championship, if they see someone breaking store windows, they might start breaking windows themselves or even steal from the store. So the people around us influence how much law-breaking we can tolerate.

We must also wonder whether seeing violence on television or reading about it in the newspapers every day makes us tolerate crime more than we should. We become used to seeing blood on the news on television, or in full color in newspapers and magazines. Because we see thousands of dead people on TV, maybe we just try to ignore the situation behind the violence.

If so many citizens tolerate violence and crime, or even commit crimes themselves, it may simply be because of the human mind. Our minds may not care about specific laws. Instead, our minds may have a system of values that usually prevents us from hurting other people to improve our own lives. Yet, when it comes to respecting the rights of a mass of anonymous individuals, we might not be so responsible. While most people would not steal a wallet containing $50, they may not mind cheating on taxes, because cheating on taxes does not hurt any one person. It hurts society, but "society" remains an abstract idea that is not as real as a neighbor or a friend's friend. Perhaps this is why someone who robs a few dollars by force from a corner store will often end up with a longer jail term than a fraud artist who swindles thousands of dollars: threatening the life of an individual is not acceptable in our society.

When we look at the questions in the first paragraph and realize that many people have misconceptions about law-breaking, we could think it is surprising that only about 10% of Canadians have a criminal record. How could we improve the level of honesty in our society? Would a larger police force keep everyone honest? Would severe laws help make our society better? Probably not. The police would never be able to keep an eye on everyone, and people would still find ways to bend new laws. Honesty will have to come from social pressure: in the family, at school, on the job, each and every one of us can encourage honesty by showing which behaviors are unacceptable. Teaching respect should become everyone's responsibility.

你認為在我們的社會里哪些人會觸犯法律？如果你認為只有暴徒才會犯罪，那你可能就必須重新考慮考慮了。老老實實地回答下列問題：你所認識的人中有沒有人曾經有酒后開車的行為？你能否想起來，你有個朋友曾經使用過毒品？你有沒有覺察到你父母在過海關時很可能并不總是講老實話的？難道你的朋友沒有人曾經把激光唱碟CD上的內容替另外一個人轉錄到錄音帶上？

假如你過去不懂，那么現在你應該知道，這一切做法都是違法的。那么，現在看看在你所認識的人中，有多少人根本從嚴就沒犯過法？那么，這是否意味著把我們這個社會的絕大多數成員都該關押起來？跟電影片子里的情況不同，我們不能把世人簡單地分成壞蛋和好人。真實的生活要復雜得多。人生病，有的是普普通通的著涼，也有形形色色致使的癌癥，罪行同樣也會有嚴重程度上的不同。例如，在電梯里抽煙會使人感到討厭，但總比用槍來威脅他人要輕得多。

人們除了自己會犯法，一般也能容忍程度不同的罪行。人們為什么會容忍某些罪行呢？這可能是因為看看其他人干了某件事，我們就輕易接受。我們自己甚至會開始犯那種罪行。例如，在公路上大家都超速行駛時，大多數人都會發現自己也比較容易超速行駛。當人們在慶賀某項體育冠軍時，如果他們看見某人正在砸爛商店的櫥窗，也許他們自己也會開始動手去砸櫥窗，甚至會從商店里偷東西。所以我們周圍的人會影響到我們對違法行為的容忍程度。

我們也可能會懷疑，是否因為我們每天都看到電視上的暴力場面，每天都讀報報紙上的暴力新聞，這一切都使得我們對本來不應容忍的犯罪行為變得更加能夠容忍了。看到電視新聞中的血腥場面或看到報刊上的五顏六色的血腥圖片，我們現在已經習以為常了。因為我們在電視上看到了成千上萬的死人，也許我們就不大理會在這些暴行場面背后的情況了。

如果有非常多的市民能容忍暴力和犯罪行為，甚至這些市民自己就在搞犯罪活動，這很可能只是因為人的思想在作怪。我們思想對某些具體的法律條文可能不夠重視，代替這些法律條文的是我們思想中有一套自己的是非價值觀念。這些觀念使我們不能為了改善自己的生活而去傷害他人。然而，當涉及到尊重眾多的無名小輩的權利時，我們很可能就不那么認真負責地對待這些問題了。盡管絕大多數人不會去偷竊里面裝有50美元的一個男用皮錢包，但是他們很可能在交稅方面有欺騙行為，偷稅漏稅。因為偷稅漏稅不會傷害任何一個具體的人。偷稅漏稅傷害到社會，不過"社會"仍然是個抽象概念，社會并不像某位鄰居或某朋友的朋友那樣具體的人。也許這就是之所以一個人從街拐角的一家商店里搶劫力三兩美元，其后果常常要比詐騙了數千美元的冒牌藝術家蹲監獄的刑期還長的原因：用武力來威脅任何一個人的生命在我們的社會里都是根本不能允許的。

當我們看了本文第一段中的幾個問題并且我們意識到了許多人對犯法這一概念有錯誤的理解之后，加拿大人只有百分之十的人有過前科，這一點非常令人吃驚。我們怎樣和能讓我們的社會中的人變得更加誠實呢？擴大警力的隊伍會讓每個人都誠實嗎？嚴厲的法律有助至高無上我們把社會搞得更好一些嗎？未必會吧。警察們永遠也不會用眼睛盯著每一個人，人們總會找出種種辦法去曲解新頒布的法律條文。誠實將不得不來自社會上的壓力：在家里，在學校，在工作崗位上，我們每個人以及我們全體都要鼓勵誠實的言行。要表明哪些行為是人們所不能接受的。教會人們尊重別人也教會人們自我尊重，應該成為每個人的職責。