A consensual crime is a public order crime that involves more than one participant, all of whom give their consent as willing participants in an activity that is unlawful. Legislative bodies and interest groups sometimes rationalize the criminalization of consensual activity because they feel it offends cultural norms, or because one of the parties to the activity is considered a "victim" despite their informed consent.
Consensual crimes are sometimes described as crimes in which the victim is the state, the judicial system, or society at large and so affect the general (sometimes ideological or cultural) interests of the system, such as common sexual morality. Victimless crimes, while similar, typically involve acts that do not involve multiple persons. Drug use is typically considered a victimless crime whereas the sale of drugs between two or more persons would be a consensual crime. The fact that no persons come forward to claim injury has essentially made the two terms interchangeable in common use.
Read more about Consensual Crime: Giving Consent, Examples
Famous quotes containing the words consensual and/or crime:
“At twenty-two, he’d been a cowboy, a rustler, one of the best in the Sprawl.... He’d operated on an almost permanent adrenaline high, a byproduct of youth and proficiency, jacked into a custom cyberspace deck that projected his disembodied consciousness into the consensual hallucination that was the Matrix.”
—William Gibson b. (1948)
“He took control of me for forty-five minutes. This time I’ll have control over him for the rest of his life. If he gets out fifteen years from now, I’ll know. I’ll check on him every three months through police computers. If he makes one mistake he’s going down again. I’ll make sure. I’m his worst enemy now.”
—Elizabeth Wilson, U.S. crime victim. As quoted in People magazine, p. 88 (May 31, 1993)