Unintended Consequences
There's an funny line that goes something to the effect of "Gravity: It's not just a good idea...it's the law." While there's nothing funny about the story below, it does illustrate the fact that unintended consequences are as hard to escape as gravity:
TWO decades ago, in an effort to curb domestic violence, states began passing “mandatory arrest” laws. Police officers responding to a call for help would no longer need to determine whether one person was truly violent or out of control; every time someone reported abuse, the police would simply be required to make an arrest.
It seemed like a good tactic — at least to people who work with victims of domestic violence. (Police officers tended to be less enthusiastic, because they prefer to make arrests at their own discretion.) Arrests would immediately stop the violence and might discourage abusers from further acts of abuse.
But 20 years later, it seems the mandatory arrest laws are having an unintended, deadly side effect. The number of murders committed by intimate partners is now significantly higher in states with mandatory arrest laws than it is in other states.
Maybe if lawmakers were actually occasionally affected by the legislation they enacted (apart from profiting from it, that is), they might pay more attention to the law of unintended consequences. Oftentimes, these kinds of consequences are predictable to anyone who understands the basics of how incentives work, and takes the time to consider what incentives are set up by a given legislative act.
I remain convinced that one of the reasons that the founders of this country attempted to make it hard for Congress to pass legislation, and easy for the President to veto their efforts, is because they well understood the harm possible when people who wish to be seen as "doing good" don't bother to find out whether the actual outcome is anything like what they promised.
The Protection Battered Spouses Don’t Need - New York Times via The Corner