Clarifications

It seems that the proposal to license criminals has been very popular among our supporters, but we have received a flood of e-mailed questions about special cases in the proposal. We have reproduced the most popular and interesting questions here in a FAQ-style post. We hope it is informative.

Q. What about people who, for one reason or another, lose their touch?
A. Janet's original proposal did not go into detail on this point, but our studies have shown that criminals do eventually either get sloppy or stop participating in serious crime. Our proposed solution is to have a retirement program. Criminals can choose to put a portion of their proceeds away for the future. The retirement plan would be backed by the Criminal Guild (which in turn is backed by the government).

Q. Is there a tenure-track for criminals?
A. While the idea of allowing criminals to gain tenure (rewarding past performance by making their membership in the guild not dependent on future performance) is alluring, at the GNU Public Dictatorship we feel that it would limit the efficiency of the system. Instead of pulling heists for the love of crime people would be pulling heists to get noticed by the Tenure Board. We also feel that tenured criminals would probably be more of a burden on the system than anything else.

Q. How would a criminal know that his or her job is secure?
A. This is the primary problem with the lack of a tenure-track. A good criminal will never know that his or her position is secure. This will, according to some, lead to high levels of stress. Under our system a good criminal will have no need to worry about the future, but the less-productive criminals will have to worry about their future well-being. We believe this is an acceptable situation, as someone not suited for a life of crime should not feel entitled to the benefits of a secure position. At the GNU Public Dictatorship we believe that people should work where they are productive.

Q. How would the conflict between licensing criminals and paying law enforcement to thwart them be resolved?
A. We don't see a conflict here. We pay the law enforcement officers to protect our world citizens, and we allow criminals to engage in criminal behavior (under license). After all, someone would engage in these activities regardless of whether we licensed them, so we can't be accused of creating an artificial need for law enforcement. If we paid criminals to commit unlawful acts there might be a conflict, but as it stands there is no real conflict.

Q. By licensing criminals aren't we justifying criminal behavior?
A. Now that's just silly. The media already glorifies criminal behavior and justifies engaging in a little here and there, so to accuse us of trying to justify criminal behavior by requiring that criminals be licensed is just absurd.

Q. Couldn't the time spent licensing criminals just be spent eradicating them?
A. Let me answer this one with a question. If you were a criminal, would you report voluntarily so that you could be put away for your crimes? What if instead of being put away for your crimes you were to be tested and given an opportunity to be a licensed professional criminal? We think that only those criminals who are serious about their careers will come to be licensed, and those are the very people who would not voluntarily turn themselves in.

We hope this FAQ has been useful. As always we value your suggestions, and we would like to point out that this whole criminal guild is still in its infancy and has not been embraced fully by the Board of Dictators yet. We welcome your feedback, as at the GNU Public Dictatorship we believe in nothing if not exploring all possible solutions to the world's problems!