shanghaiing had less to do with public weal than enforcing indentured servitude on desperately needed labor pools. sailor's inherent 'criminality' was just fabricated to give owners excuses to limit the agency of workers whose greatest crimes were generally protesting work conditions by skipping out on contracts.

promiscuity, belligerency, and alcoholism were not particularly more pronounced in sailing labor than terrestrial labor but the former was more important to business and empire and so warranted different legal codes and myth-making