Victimless Crimes: Why should they exist?

It is safe to say thousands of crimes are committed every day. It is very possible that any given person has committed a crime today. This can span from murdering innocents, to quickly dashing across the street because the next crosswalk is a half a mile away. Some actions are considered crimes despite causing no harm to anyone these are known as victimless crimes. Victimless crimes include things such as gambling, prostitution, and the consumption of some drugs. It makes no logical sense that something that nobody should be illegal and such victimless crimes should be legalized.

It can be difficult to truly define what a victimless crime is, however, in the case of prostitution, it is clear that nobody is being harmed. It is a private agreement between two consenting adults. Nobody is harmed and yet it remains illegal in the majority of places in the United States. The primary counter-argument to that would be that prostitution can quickly fall into the hands of people willing to force others into the practice. However, prostitution should not be the crime. Rather, those responsible for forcing other should be held responsible.

Another thing that is generally considered a victimless crime is gambling. It is an agreement between two consenting adults to wager money. The dangers of gambling are real but it does not inherently hurt anyone. Addiction to anything is harmful, be it to alcohol, coffee, or video games. The government's efforts should not be in limiting the freedom of the citizens who would respectfully and responsibly utilize what is now considered to be victimless crimes, but to help those who have fallen to addiction or protecting people who are being abused.

Comments

  1. TomRApril 21, 2018 at 8:13 AM

    The thought of victimless crimes being abolished is an interesting concept. Another example that comes to mind is the law forcing drivers to wear seatbelts. Failure to do so would only result in the harm to oneself in a worst-case scenario, but would for the most part not hurt anyone. With legallized prostitution, comes health risks with the spread of STD's. Should this be something controlled by our government? Many governmental policies are put in place to protect us from ourselves under the victimless crime category, but the more that are implemented, the lesser our sense of individuality and people are not challenged to grow-up. This forces citizens to rely on the government to make decisions for their life and common sense soon goes out the window.

    The lack of hyperlinks or references to anything shows that this post is more opinion than fact. The topic is interesting, but there should have been statistics to back the points made. Showing a group that agrees with with the thesis such as: www.prisonlegalnews.org/news/2009/jun/15/the-tragedy-of-victimless-crimes-in-the-united-states/ , might be helpful.

    ReplyDelete
  2. Julie Quinn TACApril 22, 2018 at 8:30 AM

    This comment has been removed by the author.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Julie Quinn TACApril 27, 2018 at 8:35 AM

      This is an interesting post. I wonder if you can use some statistics to back the prostitution or gambling angle a bit? Many people can be affected by either; some women in prostitution do it because there is no other way out (drug addiction, for example). What about the families of those with gambling addiction? It can create shelter and food insecurity of the primary breadwinner gambles all the money away; the family goes to a shelter, and the state gets involved. Of course this isn't for all cases. So I wonder if you can find some statistics to see the economic repercussions on these "victimless crimes" to see if, possibly, the victims are the U.S. taxpayers? And, from another angle, what responsibility is it for the U.S. to police this? I mean, why did they become crimes to begin with? Gambling isn't a crime in certain jurisdictions unless...

      Delete

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Wrongful Convictions

Over the years, the United States justice system has incarcerated millions of people. But most importantly, some of these people have been victims of wrongful conviction because of one reason or the other. Hundreds of people who are wrongfully convicted end up spending many years behind bars for crimes they never committed. Exonerations based on DNA analysis have provided proof that wrongful convictions are real . Wrongful convictions result from systemic flaws in the criminal justice system some of which can be addressed. Wrongful convictions can be blamed on various factors, including. Eyewitness Misidentification.             This is the most significant contributor to wrongful convictions in the country. The human brain can fail to recollect the events as they happened. The eyewitness memory could also be riddled with errors, lapses and misjudgments especially if the event was traumatic. Inaccurate identification of su...
Read more

What is Bullying

Bullying entails aggressive and unwanted behaviors among school children which involve a perceived or real power imbalance. In many situations, the behavior can be repetitive or has the potential to be repeated for a prolonged period.   The stude nts involved, that is, the bullies and bullied may have severe prolonged problems.   In this case, this post will advance the concept of bullying in schools, particularly the effects it advances to the victims. Potential suicide: it is one of the worst things which the victims can do in response to bullying. It happens in many situations primarily because of depression and despondency . Moreover, the feelings of helplessness make a bullied person view suicide as the only potent option remaining. Suicide can take several days, months or even years and the affected learner decides extreme social ridicule and embarrassment ( Ttofi et al., 201 Physical injury: bullying on both males and females often lead to physical inju...
Read more

Is the death penalty an effective deterrent

The Death penalty is defined as the punishment of execution, administered to someone legally convicted of a capital crime.A capital crime is a crime that is punishable by death. Capital crimes are mostly associated with first-degree Murder. There’s no doubt that that the death penalty is a punishment but can also be seen as a deterrent. If Its seen as a deterrent then why are crimes that warrant the penalty still being committed. Deterrents are meant to discourage someone from doing something and if that’s not the case with the death penalty then maybe other methods of punishment need to be explored. The death penalty has always been a relevant topic throughout U.S history . In the nineteenth century abolitionist movements were spreading throughout the states in the northeast and as a result, states reduced the number of capital crimes and built more penitentiaries. Another result was that Pennsylvania moved executions from the public eye and did it in private at correctional ...
Read more