Honor system

An honor system or honesty system is a philosophical way of running a variety of endeavors based on trust, honor, and honesty. Something that operates under the rule of the "honor system" is usually something that does not have strictly enforced rules governing its principles. In British English, it would more often be called a "trust system" and should not be confused with the British honours system.

The honor system is also a system granting freedom from customary surveillance (as to students or prisoners) with the understanding that those who are so freed will be bound by their honor to observe regulations (e.g. prison farms are operated under the honor system), and will therefore not abuse the trust placed in them.

A person engaged in an honor system has a strong negative concept of breaking or going against it. The negatives may include community shame, loss of status, loss of a personal sense of integrity and pride or in extreme situations, banishment from one's community.

There are various types of honor systems that may be employed. A total honor system makes no checks on its users to verify their honesty, thereby easily allowing the system to be cheated. Though the system may face occasional audits, there would be no way thereafter of learning the identity of the violator. Some are simply contingent upon the truthfulness presumed of users; others are present when the losses caused by those who may cheat the system are less costly than a higher security system.

Other honor systems employ random checks of selected users to ensure they are in compliance. A minority of users will undergo this check, while the remainder will be given a chance to get away with a violation. In these cases, the management of the system hopes that the fear of getting checked will coerce users into compliance.

In some places, public transport such as trains, trams and/or buses operate on an honor system called proof-of-payment. The local government authorities may find it impractical or overly expensive to install ticket-checking turnstiles at every station, and instead rely on casual human surveillance to check if all riders possess tickets. In such a system one could thus ride the train or bus without paying, and simply hope to be lucky enough to avoid a random ticket check during the trip. Such behavior is impossible for an honor system by itself to prevent. High penalties tend to be used to offset the financial cost of non-paying riders. Such is the case with the trams in Krakow, Poland.

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