A victimless crime is a term used to refer to actions that have been ruled illegal but do not directly violate or threaten the rights of any other individual. It often involves consensual acts in which two or more persons agree to commit a criminal offence in which no other person is involved. For example, in the United States current victimless crimes include prostitution, gambling, and illicit drug use. Edwin Schur and Hugo Bedau state in their book Victimless Crimes: Two sides of a Controversy “some of these laws produce secondary crime, and all create new ‘criminals’ many of whom are otherwise law abiding citizens and people in authority.” This is an issue in the United States where prison rates keep increasing even though it already has the highest prison population out of any country. The term "victimless crime" is not used in jurisprudence, but is rather used to cast doubt onto the efficacy of past, existing and proposed legislation; or to highlight the unintended consequences of the same. In politics, for example, a lobbyist might use this word with the implication that the law in question should be abolished.
Read more about Victimless Crime: Low-level Victimless Crime, Determining A Victim, Proponents For Reform, Proponents of The Status Quo, Legalization of Victimless Acts
Famous quotes containing the word crime:
“Has anyone ever told you that you overplay your various roles rather severely, Mr. Kaplan? First you’re the outraged Madison Avenue man who claims he’s been mistaken for someone else. Then you play the fugitive from justice, supposedly trying to clear his name of a crime he knows he didn’t commit. And now you play the peevish lover stung by jealously and betrayal. It seems to me you fellows could stand a little less training from the FBI and a little more from the Actors Studio.”
—Ernest Lehman (b.1920)