Victimeless Crimes June 2011

Victimeless Crimes June 2011

Beginning with the term itself, I have a problem. It has been argued that there is no such thing as a victimless crime, because most so-called victimless crimes have victims, or at least potential victims, such as the taxpayers who must eventually pay the cost of rehabilitating the drug addict and supporting his dependents. It has also been argued that prostitution and anti female pornography harm all women, and that "hate speech" harms all members of the target group, by increasing the risk of future violence, causing fear and anxiety of such harms, and reinforcing entrenched social inequalities. If it is conceded that the criminal law may properly prohibit conduct that involves a risk of harm to the protected interests of others, one is faced with a range of behaviors involving varying degrees of actual or potential victimization with no clear answers about where to draw the line between criminal and noncriminal behavior.

In some cases of victimless crimes should be defined as those that lack direct, identifiable victims. In some cases victimless crimes do have direct victims, such as citizens offended or harassed by public drunks or disorderly persons; the spouse of the adulterer, bigamist, or prostitution client; or the spouse, parent, or child of a drug addict. Refusal to recognize the latter forms of victimization requires problematic distinction for instance, between mere mental distress and physical harm. It is quite reasonable to argue that one or more of the participants in a victimless crime is, or will in the future become, a victim of serious harm, such as the sporadic heroin user who becomes addicted, or the young person who becomes a prostitute; moreover, the victims of these harms, who are often members of socially disadvantaged groups, may not freely "consent" to either the prohibited acts or the ensuing harms.

Victimless crimes "lack victims in the sense of complainants asking for the protection of the criminal law". People can be victimized, or at least put at risk of harm, without knowing it, and much of the absence of complainants is due to the secretive nature of these crimes. The "complaint less" criterion excludes some supposedly victimless crimes, such as pornography, and includes many offenses never proposed for repeal. In bribery, receiving stolen property, possession of unregistered weapons, most traffic law violations, and innumerable health, safety, environmental, and regulatory offenses, the complainant is generally a police officer or paid informant, not a crime victim seeking protection. To argue that the latter offenses are significantly different from the victimless or complaint less crimes which should be repealed is to admit that the proposed criterion does not, by