There was a time when crime was denoted by genuinely bad acts - burglary and theft of all sorts, assaults of all types, murder and other offences which caused real harm. Sadly, the world we now inhabit sees many more acts as crimes.
The current furore surrounding the newly invented 'offence' of 'upskirting' is a case in point. For anyone to indulge in attempting to take photographs from underneath a woman's skirt or down her blouse is such a puerile act as to warrant school detention and a hundred lines; it is a stupid and childish thing to do but can it really be called a crime that can be punished by up to two years in prison ?
Of course, it is yet another example of the myriad ways in which nasty men supposedly do horrible things to women, and this, alone, justifies its conversion into a serious 'crime' in the eyes of many. In reality, it is no more than another addition to the pantheon of perceived social offences to which we are now subject. Many of these offences, wolf-whistling springs to mind as another, have been dreamt up by the monstrous regiment of militant feminists who see men as agents of the devil. Why on earth do we put up with such nonsense ?
It is long passed the time that we should have created a clear distinction between crime and social unacceptability. The penalties for the first include prison, for the second a trip to the headmaster's study and public shaming if, indeed, they are really even offences. Many things offend me but I don't expect them to be turned into crimes; feeling offended is not the same as being robbed, physically assaulted or murdered.
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