decriminalize

It's quite obvious that when you decriminalize something, the crime rate will go down, since the people doing that thing are not criminals any more.

The first modern country to decriminalize homosexuality, as far as I can find, was France, which did so in 1791, during the Revolution.

An important hurdle is that we do not have any states that have yet decriminalized "harder" drugs like heroin and cocaine, but it is simply a matter of time. Pressure on lawmakers in the form of education, money and votes will in fact work.

Many US states have Romeo and Juliet laws that decriminalize sexual activity between minors providing that their age difference is close.

Pretty sure the Economist has already run something along the lines of "For %%%%'s sake, let's decriminalize marijuana already.

Yes, given the Koch brothers spent money supporting gay marriage legalization, decriminalize drugs, and repealing the Patriot Act you might want to be careful[1].

Ugh, is this going to look like Big Tobacco in 50 years?Vice taxes and revenue streams to be kept alive for the district?That's going to be such a kick-in-the-backside for everyone who just wanted to decriminalize it & stop putting people away for years.

But does it also make sense to decriminalize racist behaviour?Edit: just to be sure, I'm arguing over principles here, and all I have to bring is historical arguments, not judiciary ones, since I neither am a lawyer, nor do I reside in the US.

This development, given our definition of what is criminal, will de facto decriminalize many types of behavior, opening new, relatively safe avenues of legal behavior for multitudes of people, creating new opportunities for the wise, and further tempting the evil and the foolish.