You don’t feel sympathy for sex workers, who in many places are unable to report being assaulted?
Your example is having something you stole stolen from you. That’s not the same as doing something illegal, and having a completely different crime done to you. “I was jaywalking, and someone robbed me when i arrived on the other side of the street”. I can’t report it because I would have to explain why I was in the middle of the street without having walked past the shops on that side.
I know discussions here are often America-centric, but note that this depends on jurisdiction. E.g. in Sweden, the one selling sex is not a criminal, the one buying is.
I can’t make sense of your line of reasoning on this comment thread.
I thought we were discussing why society would want to incentivize (or at least not disincentive) reporting a crime, even if the reporter is themselves a criminal. The idea is to eliminate at least one act of criminality instead of none.
You’re argument seems to be: people who commit crimes shouldn’t expect protection under the law from other crimes. And when it was pointed out that not all crimes are equal, your reply is “but I don’t consider some of those things as crimes.”
When the grandparent said "Kinda hard to feel sorry for a criminal being unable to report a crime....."
The parent answered "You don’t feel sympathy for sex workers, who in many places are unable to report being assaulted?" -- as if that category was what the grantparent meant by "criminals".
It was obvious to me that this was not what the grandparent meant, and I chimed in to say that one can still find it "hard to feel sorry for a criminal being unable to report a crime" while still feeling sorry for a prostitute that can't report a rape.
It's easy to speak of "criminals" casually without including (into your concept of them) large categories of people that the law might still consider "criminals" (eg. prostitute, a teen that did some weed, a guy who hacked into a website for fun, somebody who gasp pirated some music, etc.).
That's orthogonal to what protection criminals should get or not. I can support the rights of a criminal (to a fair trial etc) without feeling sorry for them. I don't find feeling "sorry" necessary to support people's rights.
>You’re argument seems to be: people who commit crimes shouldn’t expect protection under the law from other crimes.
No, my comment meant to convey (a) that the grandparent's point that "Kinda hard to feel sorry for a criminal being unable to report a crime" is not some bizarre cruel statement, and it doesn't necessarily have to do with some special cases of legally considered "criminals" that are more like victims themselves like a prostitute.
What I didn't like was the uncharitable interpretation of the grandparent's comment.
Not trying to be uncharitable. I’m just stunned by the seeming hard-line black-and-white worldview in the parent post. I’m confused by the idea that the word “criminals” doesn’t include large categories of people who do things that are against the law. That is the _definition_ of criminal, is it not?
Official definitions (like etymologies) are not really relevant to actual language (though they are relevant to court).
It's the typical intended use / understanding of a term (as used casually), which can even change between contexts even when used by the same person, that matters.
You don’t feel sympathy for sex workers, who in many places are unable to report being assaulted?
Your example is having something you stole stolen from you. That’s not the same as doing something illegal, and having a completely different crime done to you. “I was jaywalking, and someone robbed me when i arrived on the other side of the street”. I can’t report it because I would have to explain why I was in the middle of the street without having walked past the shops on that side.