Victimless Crime
Sociologyindex, Sociology Books 2009, Consensual Crime, Victimless Crimes
Victimless crime are those that are of the nature of illegal gambling, drug use, and selling sex, where the victim does not experience harm and is indeed a willing participant.
The conventional conception of crime implies that there is a victim of the criminal behaviour who experiences harm.
Such criminal behaviours, according to some, where crimes are victimless, should not be regulated by criminal law.
Victimless Crimes are illegal acts in which the only victims are the offenders.
Victimless Crimes are established for social control over morality and other social relationship and are applied mostly to the lower classes.
Victimless Crimes are criminal only because politically powerful people or groups find them undesirable, offensive or suit ideological control drugs, prostitution, homosexuality.
There is an absence of restrictions against elite deviance. The small amount of street crime keeps the focus off of elite deviance
It is easier and more acceptable for Upper Class people to be deviant or engage in Victimless Crimes.
Victimless Crime includes criminal or illegal acts in which all participants are consenting adults.
Illegal acts in which all participants are consenting adults.
Examples of victimless crimes include sex crimes, drug use, illegal gambling, sports such as cock fighting.
The classic definition of victimless crime assumes, "There is never a victim" in sex crimes, drug use, etc.
A re-examination of consent indicates that people consent under pressure.
"Victimless" crime often does have a victim, but at some level, the harm is self-inflicted.
Conflict Theory holds that victimless crimes are criminal only because politically powerful people or groups find them undesirable or offensive.
Functionalist theory holds that social need, not societal power, underlies the labeling of victimless behaviors as criminals.
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INSIDER TRADING: THE CASE AGAINST THE
"VICTIMLESS CRIME" HYPOTHESIS
Norman S. Douglas - blackwell-synergy.com
ABSTRACT: This paper challenges the long held hypothesis that insider trading is a
victimless crime. Using utility maximization analysis, the author examines both the good
news and bad news cases. Injury is demonstrated. Separability of the insider's trade from
the insider's information monopoly is also examined utilizing the generally accepted
market structure analysis. Separability is rejected.
Blackmail as a Victimless Crime: Reply
to Altman
WALTER E. BLOCK
Loyola University New Orleans - College of Business Administration
ROBERT W. MCGEE
Barry University - Andreas School of Business
Abstract: ssrn.com/abstract=83348
The legal theory of blackmail is the veritable puzzle surrounded by a mystery wrapped in
an enigma. Consider. Blackmail consists of two things, each indisputably legal on their
own; yet, when combined in a single act, the result is considered a crime. What are the
two things? First, there is either a threat or an offer. In the former case, it is,
typically, to publicize an embarrassing secret; in the latter, it is to remain silent
about this information. Second, there is a demand or a request for funds or other valuable
considerations. When put together, there is a threat that unless paid off, the secret will
be told.
Either of these things, standing alone, is perfectly legal. To tell an embarrassing secret
is to do no more than gossip; no one has ever been incarcerated for that. To ask for money
is likewise a legitimate activity, as everyone from Bill Clinton to the beggar to the fund
raiser for the local charity can attest. Yet when combined, the result is called blackmail
and it is widely seen as a crime.
But that is just the puzzle. The mystery is that over a dozen attempts to account for this
puzzle have been written, and not a one of them agrees to any great extent with any other.
It is as if there are a plethora of witnesses to a motor vehicle accident, each not only
disagreeing with all the others, but each telling a completely different story. The enigma
is that with the exception of a corporal's guard of commentators, no one has seen fit to
assert the contrary: that two legal "whites" cannot make an illegal
"black."
This is precisely the point of the present paper. The authors maintain that since it is
legal to gossip, it should therefore not be against the law to threaten to gossip, unless
paid off not to do so. In a word, blackmail is a victimless crime, and must be legalized,
if justice is to be attained. The authors also reply to a paper written by Scott Altman,
who takes a different position.
Are Victimless Crimes Actually
Harmful?
Louis Veneziano, Carol Veneziano
A victimless crime is an illegal act that is consensual and lacks a complaining
participant, including such activities as drug use, galnblina, pornography, and
prostitution. No one is harmed, or if harm occurs, it is negated by the informed consent
of willing participants. It has been suggested that harm can take on various forms, but
that since the harmed individual consented to participate in one of these acts, the
attribution of victimization is nullified. In order to determine whether this position
coincided with the sentiment of the public, a questionnaire was administered in which 944
respondents were asked to rate how much harm. if any, exists for participants engaging in
four traditional victimless crimes along the dimensions of frequency, extent, and nature
of involvement. The results indicated that the majority of respondents felt that these
acts were harmful. The results were discussed in terms of theoretical and policy
implications. - ccj.sagepub.com/cgi/content/abstract/9/1/1
Software Piracy is not a victimless
crime
October 10, 2006
Abstract
Many people, industries and economies are being affected as a direct result of the growing
problem of software piracy. In this essay, the authors make a closer examination into
software
piracy to see what it is, how big it is, who the victims of software piracy are and how
they are
affected by it. - cs.mu.oz.au/343/a3/18.pdf
American Holocaust: The Price of
Victimless Crime Laws
Tim O'Donnell
A shocking look at the legal violence used by America's religious majority to convert or
kill America's hated minorities.
American Holocaust provides a clear explanation of why victimless crime laws throughout
the world are morally unjust because the laws violently uphold the ethnic, racial, moral
and political opinions of the law-controlling majority. In the United States, victimless
crime laws are used almost exclusively for morality control that is a politically correct
way of describing religious persecution. The devastation that has been wrought by the
victimless crime laws in the United States is detailed in American Holocaust and a
potential solution is offered to end the destructive effects of a religious persecution.
Consensual crime is any crime in which the ‘victim’ is a willing participant. Consensual crime relates to or involves consent or consensus in crime.
Consensual crimes are crimes such as in drug use and prostitution, because there is invariably some kind of consensus in such crime.
A consensual crime is any activity, currently illegal, in which we, as adults, choose
to participate that does not physically harm the person or property of a nonconsenting
other. Consensual crimes are not without risk? but we, as adults and knowing the risks,
consented to take part in them.
Consensual crimes are sometimes referred to as "victimless crimes." The
definition of a consensual crime is a criminal act committed by two or more people, who
consent to involvement, and does not involve any nonconsenting individuals. Consensual
crime is a public order crime involving more than one participant, all of whom give their
consent as willing participants in an activity that is unlawful.
Why are some consensual activities considered crimes while others are not? Consensual
crimes find the basis of their restrictions and prohibitions in religion. Even the idea
that one should take good care of oneself has a religious base.
Consensual
sex crimes in the armed forces: a primer for the uninformed.: An article from: Duke
Journal of Gender Law & Policy
Ain't
Nobody's Business If You Do: The Absurdity of Consensual Crimes in a Free Society
Victimless
Crime?: Prostitution, Drugs, Homosexuality, and Abortion (The Roxbury Series in Crime,
Justice, and Law)
Product Description
This brief text begins by addressing the following two questions: (1) What kinds of
problems can the law solve? and (2) What kinds of problems does the law create? Using
these questions as starting points, esteemed criminologists Meier and Geis explore the
role and function of law in four areas: prostitution, drugs, homosexuality, and abortion.
Consensus is not a hallmark of the ongoing controversy over "victimless" crime.
Some people view prostitution, drugs, homosexuality, and abortion as crimes without
victims; others view the participants involved as victims without crimes. Perhaps the only
thing these four behaviors have in common is substantial disagreement about the
wrongfulness of the behavior and the proper role for the law. As a result, the
effectiveness and scope of the law is limited.
Meier and Geis' provocative book offers an in-depth discussion of behaviors in these four
areas, then reviews the conflicting opinions about the proper role of criminal law for
dealing with them. Victimless Crime? eases instruction by providing an ideal classroom
forum for exploring the facts behind these polemical and contentious issues.
American
Holocaust: The Price of Victimless Crime Laws
Product Description
American Holocaust provides a clear expaination of why victimless crime laws throughout
the world are morally unjust because the laws violently uphold the ethnic, racial, moral
and political opinions of the law controlling majority. In the United States victimless
crime laws are used almost exclusively for morality control which is a politcally correct
way of describing religious persecution. The devastion that has been wrought by the
victimless crime laws in the United States is detailed in American Holocaust and a
potential soltion is offered to end the destructive effects of a religious persecution.
Reconsidering
victimless crime.: An article from: Regulation
Victimless
Crimes: Crime, Justice, and Punishment (Crimes, Justice, and Punishment)
No
Price Too High: Victimless Crimes and the Ninth Amendment
“Professor Robert Hardaway provides an interesting and provocative assessment of
these so-called victimless crimes and our societal battles to restrict them....NO PRICE
TOO HIGH is interesting reading with a powerfully-presented and strongly-argued thesis. It
is likely to provoke useful discussion about important issues.”–Law and Politics
Book Review
Product Description
Hardaway argues the criminalization of victimless crimes violates the Ninth Amendment to
the U.S. Constitution and creates enormous public policy problems in the society. He
contends that the Ninth Amendment adjudication model and the concepts of
self-determination and the harm principle are the standards to which privacy issues should
be litigated.
