Public Law Codexery

Victimless crime

Illegal acts with no direct victim, debated in law and ethics.

Definitions vary worldwide but often include drug use, prostitution, assisted suicide, and smuggling.[1] In politics, the term may be used by lobbyists or activists to imply the law should be abolished.[2] Whether a victim exists is disputed for illegal acts that are consensual or involve only the person committing them, which are known as victimless crimes.[1]

Quick Facts

Definition
An illegal act that directly involves only the perpetrator or occurs between consenting individuals
Key characteristics
Excessive, indicative of a distinct pattern of behavior, adverse effects impact only the person who engaged in it
Common examples
  • Drug use
  • prostitution
  • assisted suicide
  • smuggling
  • illegal immigration

Facts from the source article.

Key facts and history

John Stuart Mill's harm principle considers such acts "victimless" by viewing the individual as the sole sovereign, excluding abstract bodies like the state.[3] Jim Leitzel identifies three characteristics of a victimless crime: the act is excessive, indicates a distinct behavior pattern, and adversely affects only the person who engaged in it.[4] Proponents of legalization argue the war on drugs reduces the workforce by damaging convicted individuals' ability to find work.[5] Drug arrests increase every year, with rates for drug possession or use doubling for whites and tripling for blacks between 1980 and 2009.[5]

A high demand for prohibited goods or services is often the origin of many victimless crimes.[6] Black-market prices rise and remaining criminals earn monopoly profits because criminal penalties restrict supply more than demand.[6] Sophisticated, well-organized criminal groups are encouraged to grow by this "crime tariff."[6] Criminal organizations then branch out into other types of crime.[6]

Bribing public officials and funding further diversification are made possible by these large profits.[6] An economy that depends on labor is harmed by this decrease in the workforce.[5]

What the cited sources add

Vera Bergelson states that victimless crime comes in four main varieties: acts that do not harm others, transactions between consenting adults, acts whose consequences are borne by society, and actions banned as immoral.[7] Homosexual sex was first legalized in France in 1791, and other proposed legalizations include consensual adult incest and teen sexting.[8] Recreational drug use and sexual pleasure are two broad categories of victimless crimes.[8] In Australia, the United States, and New Zealand, marijuana is the most common illegal drug.[9]

Because many people made their own alcohol instead of buying licensed drinks, the U.S. alcohol ban, which ended in 1933, is viewed as an unsuccessful social experiment.[9] Prostitution was made legal in the Netherlands in 1999, but by 2012 the country was thinking about adopting new rules to heavily limit it.[10]

References

  1. Wikipedia, "Victimless crime" (CC BY-SA 4.0), which cites: Fletcher, "Victimless Crime", October 30, 2019; Fletcher, "Victimless Crime", October 30, 2019; "Is Prostitution a Victimless Crime?"; Fletcher, "Victimless Crime", October 30, 2019; Fletcher, "Victimless Crime", October 30, 2019; "Black's Law Dictionary", West Publishing Company, 2004 (original not read by us) en.wikipedia.org
  2. Wikipedia, "Victimless crime" (CC BY-SA 4.0), which cites: Schur, "Victimless Crimes: Two Sides of a Controversy", The New York Times Company, 1973 (original not read by us) en.wikipedia.org
  3. Wikipedia, "Victimless crime" (CC BY-SA 4.0), which cites: John Stuart Mill, "On Liberty", Oxford University, 1859, p. 21–22; Fletcher, "Victimless Crime", October 30, 2019 (original not read by us) en.wikipedia.org
  4. Wikipedia, "Victimless crime" (CC BY-SA 4.0), which cites: Hughes, "Strictly Taboo: Cultural Anthropology's Insights into Mass Incarceration and Victimless Crime", New England Journal on Criminal & Civil Confinement, 2015, p. 49–84 (original not read by us) en.wikipedia.org
  5. Wikipedia, "Victimless crime" (CC BY-SA 4.0), which cites: Snyder, "Arrests in The United States", Office of Justice Programs (original not read by us) en.wikipedia.org
  6. Wikipedia, "Victimless crime" (CC BY-SA 4.0), which cites: Frase, "Victimless Crime" (original not read by us) en.wikipedia.org
  7. Wikipedia, "Victimless crime" (CC BY-SA 4.0), which cites: Bergelson, "International Encyclopedia of Ethics", 1 February 2013, p. wbiee094 (original not read by us) en.wikipedia.org
  8. Wikipedia, "Victimless crime" (CC BY-SA 4.0), which cites: "Criminalization of same-sex sexual relationships decreasing", www.unaids.org; "Factbox: Botswana joins the 10 latest countries to decriminalize gay sex", Reuters, 11 June 2019; Ph.D, "Worldwide Perspectives on Lesbians, Gays, and Bisexuals [3 volumes]", ABC-CLIO, 2021, p. 97; Hörnle, "Consensual Adult Incest", New Criminal Law Review, 2014, p. 76–102; Braasch, "Margin of Appreciation or a Victimless Crime: The European Court of Human Rights on Consensual Incest of Adult Siblings", German Yearbook of International Law, 2012, p. 613; La en.wikipedia.org
  9. Wikipedia, "Victimless crime" (CC BY-SA 4.0), which cites: Hall, "The recent Australian debate about the prohibition on cannabis use.", Addiction, 1997, p. 1109–1115; Hall, "What are the policy lessons of National Alcohol Prohibition in the United States, 1920–1933?", Addiction, 2010, p. 1164–1173; Routh, "Re-thinking liberty: Cannabis prohibition and substantive due process", The Kansas Journal of Law & Public Policy, 2017, p. 174–175; Hall, "The recent Australian debate about the prohibition on cannabis use.", Addiction, 1997, p. 1109–1115; "Public perceptions of arguments supporting and opp en.wikipedia.org
  10. Wikipedia, "Victimless crime" (CC BY-SA 4.0), which cites: Outshoorn, "Policy Change in Prostitution in the Netherlands: From Legalization to Strict Control.", Sexuality Research and Social Policy, 2012, p. 233–243 (original not read by us) en.wikipedia.org

Each numbered sentence above was checked against the source it cites before publication. Sentences citing Wikipedia adapt text from the English Wikipedia article Victimless crime (contributors), used under CC BY-SA 4.0; this entry is available under the same licence. Other sources were used for facts only; no text or images are copied from them.

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