This is the Cato Daily Podcast for Tuesday, November 21st,

2023. I'm Caleb Brown. It's easy to say that there are too many

criminal penalties out there. It's a much harder task to get a handle on exactly. too many at the Mercatus Center. In August we discussed the massive growth in the ways you can land in jail.

It was many years ago that I think a U.S. lawmaker in the House asked the Congressional Research Service to try to just catalog all the criminal

penalties and their response was chilling because their response was essentially, we don't

have the manpower to do that.

And that is a scandal as far as I'm concerned,

but it sort of just occurred

and then it's just sort of faded away

and people don't seem to be all that concerned about it.

So trying to get at answering this question about the depth of the criminal code and how many criminal penalties are out there for all of us to

stumble upon, hopefully not, but they exist and they're out there.

And where do you even begin to get a handle on that information?

I guess it's telling that I had to use computer programs, software to begin to get a handle on the information right

there's just there's too much text for a person to go through I so I once estimated

how long it would take to read the code of federal regulations.

And we're in criminal law, we're talking about statutes, but primarily, although crimes can

be created in regulations as well.

And if you read as your full-time job,

and about 250 words per minute,

it will take you over three years to read through just

the current years regulations.

...