William Ernest Hocking explains the anarchist’s attitude toward the criminal as follows:
As for the criminal, his existence is not forgotten; but it is thought that he is either such by definition only, as one who has disobeyed what we have commanded; or he is such by response to the unnatural environment of the state and the inequalities which it fosters; or else he is the unusual individual of determined ill-will who is best dealt with by near and private hands, since the life of the will, whether for good or for evil, is always intimate, individual, and unique. ("The Philosophical Anarchist," in Hoffman ed., Anarchism, Lieber-Atherton, 1973, pp. 116-117)
1. The criminal is such by definition only. No doubt this is true of some criminals. If the Brady Bunch were to make hand gun possession by decent folk illegal, then those people would become criminals by a mere act of irrational legislation. An example liberals might prefer is that of the peaceable fellow who cultivates cannabis sativa solely for his personal enjoyment, or for the alleviation of a medical disorder. Such a fellow is as it were defined into criminality. But the notion that every criminal is such by definition only, however, is palpably false. The reader is invited to supply his own counterexamples. But if he has trouble he may wish to contemplate the case of Tookie Williams, the shotgun murdering hero of some Hollywood liberals. It would be absurd to hold that the wrongness of murder is simply a matter of the positive law's saying it is wrong.
2. The state fosters inequalities that drive people into criminality. The state fosters inequalities? I would have thought that people left to their own devices pursuing their interests in accordance with their talents and ambitions would be source enough of inequality. Why is X’s net worth greater than Y’s? Because X works hard, saves and invests, and practices the ancient virtues, while Y devotes himself to wine, women, and song. Surely that is true for many values of X and Y. The modern welfare state seriously penalizes the sorts of productive behavior that naturally result in economic inequality while rewarding unproductive behavior.
In any case, no one is driven into criminality by inequalities or by poverty. Poverty no more causes crime than wealth causes virtue. That is a liberal fallacy that ignores free will and cannot explain the plain fact that vast numbers of people who have lived in straitened and unequal circumstances have not turned to crime.
3. The criminal is best dealt with locally. This is perhaps true of some criminals. But it takes more than a bunch of local yokels to put the finger on the likes of Bonnie and Clyde. The professional criminal is precisely a professional, and it takes professionals to control him. When thugs like Machine Gun Kelly, Bonnie and Cyde, and Pretty Boy Floyd roamed the land, even professional law enforcement had a hell of a time getting the drop on them due to the former’s superior firepower. A six-shooter wielded by a bourgeois family man with his eye on returement is no match for a Thompson submachine gun in the hands of a desperado with nothing to lose.
Now let’s consider the (inclusive) disjunction of the three points: every criminal is either (1) or (2) or (3). In other words, can we parcel out the criminal population in such a way that every criminal falls under one or more of these heads? Obviously not. Where does one place a serial killer like Ted Bundy? This dude was no criminal by mere extrinsic denomination. His intrinsic attributes more than justified the appellation. Nor can the blame be placed on state-induced inequalities. And again, a local posse got up by Jethro and his brother is unlikely to corral a guy as smart as Bundy. Examples are easily multiplied.
Further questions: How would an anarchist society deal with aggression emanating from foreign states? How would voluntary associations ever on the brink of dissolution be able to stand up against ruthless gangs like MS-13 that enforce severe internal discipline and kill apostates? A fortiori, how would such voluntary associations be able to counter terrorist cells that enjoy state-sponsorship? The notion that terrorist cells with state-sponsorship could be combatted effectively by loose voluntary associations lacking central organization is ludicrous.
I am sure that a sophisticated anarchist has an answer to these questions and many more besides. It would be interesting to hear what those answers are. For the nonce, however, I remain a conservative, one who holds to the moral justifiability of a limited state.
Aren't anarchists making the same mistake that leftists make, namely, ignoring the ineradicable propensity for evil in human nature? Arguably, that propensity is part of the justification for having a state in the first place. It is also part of the explanation of why states first arose. If the utopian fantasies anarchists and leftists cherish about human nature were true, states would never have arisen. It is precisely because of the predatory nature of human beings that states were necessary in the first place.
Nothing is gained by ignoring the plain facts about human nature that make the existence of the state a necessary evil. It is curious that anarchists and leftists, opposites as they are in many ways, meet in the same strange bed of the denial of man's fallen nature.