People Are Sharing Innocent Crimes That People Commit All The Time, And You Might Be Guilty Of A Few Of These

There’s plenty of things people do every day that aren’t exactly following the rules, but are generally accepted as innocent regardless.

U/ recently the people of Reddit, “What’s an innocent crime that people commit?” Read on, and stay safe out there:

1.“Here in Japan, it’s illegal to hand your neighbor’s misaddressed mail to them. In practice, we all do it.”

—u/

2.“Piracy for their own use. Especially when the original content isn’t even available legitimately anywhere.”

—u/

3.“In Sweden, if a stone anywhere has ever been moved by a human and then left in the new place for more than 12 months, it is illegal to move that stone again, because it has become a cultural artifact. This absurd law is actually enforced and creates a lot of problems for the people living in countryside, but since laws are written by people in the cities it’s not seen as a problem. The original reason for the law is to protect centuries old stonewalls. But because of how it is written, it is used against people who for example temporarily move a stone to be able to reach that area. If the work is not finished within one year and the stone has not been moved in the meantime, it is then illegal to move it back. Very innocent crime. Not a very innocent law, though.”

—u/

4.“Picking up bird feathers. Obviously, it’s not really a crime, but under the , because you can’t PROVE where you got it from, you also can’t prove that you didn’t poach it. It was made in response to massive bird poaching around the turn of the 1900s for women’s hats, and also massive amounts of bird hunting in general, which was causing the severe decline in hundreds of species. As a result, it’s actually a severe crime (thousands of dollars in fines) to own bird feathers, but obviously it’s not one that’s actually convicted on much nowadays.”

—u/

Story continues

5.“Jaywalking.”

—u/

6.“I drive home from work in the middle of the night, and there’s one left turn I have to make at a red light every night that is infuriatingly badly timed for that hour. The pharmacy on that corner has been closed up for an hour by the time I get there, and the parking lot is always empty — so driving through that to save myself 45 interminable seconds is as victimless a crime as one can commit, if it even is a crime.”

—u/

7.“A lack of public facilities means I piss where I piss.”

—u/

8.“Dropping something off in someone’s mailbox.”

—u/

9.“A poor person stealing a small amount of baby food. I’d see it when I worked at a market, and I’d just look the other way.”

—u/

10.“Trespassing, which is an intent crime where knowledge of trespassing isn’t required to be guilty or liable of trespassing. Simply intending to enter into land owned by another without permission, even on the mistaken belief that the land was public, or that they had permission, or that they owned that part of the land, is not a valid defense against the fact of trespass. We see this all the time when people are out walking around and cut through a parking lot as a means for shortcutting their route. Many people think parking lots are inherently public property. But they are still owned by someone, and that someone may choose to not allow unauthorized cut through — and the property owner has that right. In order for a trespass to be arrestable, the offender must be informed, told to leave, and either refuse to leave or return later and reoffend.”

—u/

11.“Smoking weed in most of the world.”

—u/

12.“Escaping prison.”

—u/

13.“Putting prescription pills in a daily reminder case. In some jurisdictions in the United States, possession of prescription drugs in a pill organizer is a crime, and people have been prosecuted for it. The legal theory is that since the drug is not in the package it was dispensed in by the pharmacy, and since it is not ‘in use’ (e.g., swallowed), it is unlawfully possessed. The affirmative defense, that the possessor has a valid prescription for the drug in question, is not always accepted by the court.”

—u/

14.“Rewatching the NFL without the express written consent of the NFL.”

—u/

15.“Inputting ‘No bags’ at the grocery store self-checkout to avoid the $0.10 fee.”

—u/

16.“As a server, not inputting my cash tips on my taxes. I actually didn’t even know you even needed to do that until a few years ago, after I had been working in the food industry for well over six years. Evidently, none of my coworkers were aware of this either.”

—u/

17.“Tasting grapes in the grocery store.”

18.“It’s illegal to pass out food to homeless people in some cities.”

—u/

And finally…

19.“Listening to Nickelback in a car with the windows down.”

—u/

Have your own to suggest? See you in the comments!

These entries have been edited for length and clarity.