Victimless Crime Vs Social Order Crime

Modern western law is built -for the most part-, on the unspoken libertarian understanding of 'as long as you're not hurting anyone..'

For a crime to be take place the perpetrator needs to wrong a victim in one way or another.

Therefore the basis of a police force and a judicial system in a just society is to serve and protect the public and only intervene into the lives of it's citizens when necessary to protect and maintain their freedoms.

Exactly where you can draw this line is the subject of debate.

While crimes such as murder, rape, arson etc have clear victims, other crimes such as drug use, prostitution, Pornography, gambling, sexual misconduct and euthanasia are a little less clear on who is actually being harmed. The main argument is that society in general is the victim as 'Social Order' is threaten by such activities.

More paternalistically the perpetrators can be argued as being the victim of their own crimes and the law is there to protect them from themselves.

Perhaps what was the most mind boggling case of this was when a teenage girl was charged with the manufacture of child pornography for taking pictures. Of herself.

So, where should society draw the line?

hashtagsarestupid

Victimless crimes, of course.

Enjoy the Inferno...

This.

A man cannot delegate an authority that he does not posess on the first place.

When nobody's rights are being violated without his/her consent, no crime can occur.

You exist because we allow it and you will end because we demand it.

And who is to decide whether a given 'crime' is truly victimless or not? The individual? That's not going to work very well.

Typical example: buying and smoking marijuana. An obviously victimless crime, right? Even though I do not indulge in it myself, I am definitely in favor of legalization - just like, I'd guess, many others TV Tropes forumers.

But, as long as it is illegal, buying marijuana is not truly victimless: unless you buy it from, say, a friend who is growing it himself, you are giving money to criminal organizations. The same organizations which are involved in people trafficking, gambling, child slavery and a number of other highly distasteful activities.

But they seem to know where they are going, the ones who walk away from Omelas.

AFAIK, most people either grow their own weed or buy directly from a grower.

You get cheaper and better weed when you buy it from a buddy that grows it than if you buy it from a cartel.

edited 17th Apr '11 8:04:29 AM by SavageHeathen

You exist because we allow it and you will end because we demand it.

lets not turn this into weed.

hashtagsarestupid

There is an easy way to decide whether a crime is victimless:

Does it constitute an aggression on the rights of someone else?

Clearly a guy that indulges on lotsa PCP and procceeds to drive a dumper truck while intoxicated is recklessly endangering others, which he ain't entitled to do.

However, a prostitute and her client, or a random chap smoking weed on his house, or some youngsters doing some X at a rave, ain't violating the rights of anybody else!

You exist because we allow it and you will end because we demand it.

But the person who drops out of school and spends all his money on drugs is clearly a victim of his own stupidity. Most people who hire a prostitute are married so the wife and family are the victims. I am in favor of legalization of both, not because they don't hurt anyone but because they're worth a shit-ton in tax money that can be then thrown into helping the poor idiots.

EDIT: sorry if theres any big mistakes in this post, I didn't really get any sleep last night.

edited 17th Apr '11 8:20:15 AM by thatguythere47

Is using "Julian Assange is a Hillary butt plug" an acceptable signature quote?

But making poor choices or being a dick aren't per se violations of other people's rights.

And the consent of the victim (yourself in some cases) would, by definition, make any concerns moot.

edited 17th Apr '11 8:26:04 AM by SavageHeathen

You exist because we allow it and you will end because we demand it.

Forcing teens to register as sex offenders for taking naked pictures of themselves, I'd say. Sure give 'em a slap on the wrist if they send out the pics, 'cause once it's in digital form it might as well be everywhere on the Internet, and that'll cause problems for them down the line. But becoming a sex offender might as well tattoo a huge bullseye on your forehead for all to see, ruining their lives. Disproportionate Retribution is what I'm getting at.

But then, I'm not much of a fan of these sort of criminal registries. Or that they're used for sex offenders but not murderers, for instance. It's basically saying "For this crime we give you X-years of a sentence, then after you've served your time you can BE SHUNNED FOR THE REST OF YOUR LIFE."

Which is not to say sexual crime isn't a problem, just make the punishment fit the crime. If you're okay with the thought of homeless sex offenders living in shantytowns or even forced to live in the woods (and then get evicted even from ''there''), why not just push for legislation to increase the penalty for sexual crimes to life in prison? Then eliminate the registery so people don't get caught up in it for stuff like indecent exposure.

It beats having unaccounted sex offenders living in squalor with nothing left to lose right?

edited 17th Apr '11 8:34:10 AM by Ratix

"While crimes such as murder, rape, arson etc have clear victims, other crimes such as drug use, prostitution, Pornography, gambling, sexual misconduct and euthanasia are a little less clear on who is actually being harmed. The main argument is that society in general is the victim as 'Social Order' is threaten by such activities.

More paternalistically the perpetrators can be argued as being the victim of their own crimes and the law is there to protect them from themselves."

I think being a prostitute should be decriminalized, I don't know about the buyers and pimps. Prostitution itself is pretty harmful. [1]

edited 17th Apr '11 8:50:30 AM by LoveHappiness

"Had Mother Nature been a real parent, she would have been in jail for child abuse and murder." -Nick Bostrom

Actually, when it comes to prostitution, gambling and euthanasia, there's often a pretty clear indication of who is being harmed. The problem with those activities is as much with the issue of it being done honestly and with integrity as anything else.

And don't tell me a crooked gambling operation has no victims, or that some doctor can't kill somebody who doesn't want to die. And many prostitution operations exploit the prostitutes. Perhaps you might fix that with legalization, but it would warrant regulation I think.

Drug use is a bit open-ended, there are currently some illegal drugs I'd be fine with legalizing, but we don't need to legalize all of them. Some of them are quite dangerous if not properly administered. But there are victims all of the time.

edited 17th Apr '11 8:47:04 AM by blueharp

@Savage: We're not looking at this in terms of rights, we're looking at this in terms of crime and its victims. The stoner in my example has hurt himself directly by never completing high school and his family directly since he will most likely need assistance for the rest of his life. The family is directly hurt in the second example and society is hurt in a broader sense if you believe that divorces are bad.

If we're working off the axiom that the law can be used to help people of course.

Consent of the victim does not make something okay, you cannot consent to be murdered, for example.

@Rat: I agree, the laws need to be rebalanced again.

@Blue: Heavy regulation for drugs/prostitution is a given, something akin to the conditions needed to purchase alcohol. The best thing about legalizing prostitution is that a properly implemented system would remove pimps from the equation.

edited 17th Apr '11 8:55:40 AM by thatguythere47

Is using "Julian Assange is a Hillary butt plug" an acceptable signature quote?

It seems as if you are using "victims" in a rather vague, catch-all sense here.

edited 17th Apr '11 9:00:37 AM by MRDA1981

Enjoy the Inferno...

You should be able to consent to be murdered if you so choose.

Why should society stop you? It's your life. It's your choice.

You exist because we allow it and you will end because we demand it.

You said:

I have some questions, concerning the circumstances. What if he drives the truck:

• in some deserted location, like a desert
• early in the morning, so nobody is on the streets (we assume that, for whatever reason, noise is negligible)
• during rush hours, but by some streak of luck nobody actually has to dodge or escape (that is, nobody's forced to change his location, or do anything at all)

In all these cases, nobody's rights are violated.

"Atheism is the religion whose followers are easiest to troll"

If he's running a dumper truck in the middle'o' the desert, he ain't recklessly endangering nobody.

If there's anybody else on the road (and that includes the guy arresting him) he IS recklessly endangering people. He's operating dangerous machinery around people without being able to prevent injury.

edited 17th Apr '11 9:08:32 AM by SavageHeathen

You exist because we allow it and you will end because we demand it.

• Is it even illegal to do that in deserts? I don't live in a desert area so I wouldn't know.
• He could still crash into property or something, right?
• That's still endangerment, just like a failed murder attempt is still "attempted murder" and a crime.

Edit: Ninja'd

edited 17th Apr '11 9:10:48 AM by Ratix

Legalize Drunk Driving!

"Had Mother Nature been a real parent, she would have been in jail for child abuse and murder." -Nick Bostrom

In some deserts, yes, it is illegal to drive off-road. Protecting the natural environment and all. Maybe if the guy owns the actual property being driven on, it'd be ok...

But honestly, how many users of PCP does this apply to? The problems with Drug use are far more likely to occur in populated areas where people ARE in danger.

PCP dude on the dumper truck was a deliberately extreme example, so there was no question about there being reckless endangerment.

Your Mileage May Vary on less mind-numbingly reckless cases .

edited 17th Apr '11 9:24:45 AM by SavageHeathen

You exist because we allow it and you will end because we demand it.

The thing about drugs is that while the act of taking drugs itself may be a victimless crime, taking drugs greatly increases the risk of you committing a crime with a victim. Most drugs increase the risk of violence, theft, vehicular manslaughter, sexual assault, and all sorts of nasty things. All this must be investigated, wasting money and man-hours that could have gone into prevention in the first place. Not to mention that if you wait for drug addiction to lead to crime before dishing out consequences, the damage has already been done. If someone is raped or killed by someone under the influence of drugs, you can't undo that. But you might have been able to prevent it in the first place by making drugs that greatly increase the risk of crimes illegal. As for prostitution, as of now the crime's biggest victims are the prostitutes themselves, not some social order. If it were legalized and regulated, perhaps we could bring down the abuse.

edited 17th Apr '11 9:48:28 AM by OnTheOtherHandle

"War doesn't prove who's right, only who's left." "Every saint has a past, every sinner has a future."

That might be true for some drugs.

However, on the case of heroin, the addiction itself leads the junkie to crime. His fix doesn't exactly pay itself. A junkie that can get cheap heroin is a placated, harmless junkie.

A stoner ain't much of a criminal. Weed users are likely to forget random stuff, eat junk food or be apathetic students/workers, but nothing especially worth mentioning.

Aside from sleeping with people and regretting it later and a risk of heat stroke, I wouldn't say that ecstacy is particularly harmful.

Sure, cocaine/amphetamine might make people somewhat volatile, and ketamine/PCP might make them outright nuts. But most drugs don't turn people into marauding criminal predators. Prohibition itself does.

You exist because we allow it and you will end because we demand it.

Decriminalizing drugs would not immediately make them cheaper, though. In fact, the presence of sales tax would make them more expensive, not to mention sin taxes that would help pay for the much greater need addicts will have for healthcare. Theft committed to get their fix would be on the rise.

Yeah, I know that stoners aren't exactly a public menace; I've met plenty. They're boring, sure, but not violent. I'm all for the decriminalization of marijuanna; it would be a golden tax opportunity, too. I mean, it seems kind of hypocritical to allow tobacco but not marijuanna, although I think in both cases there should be strict regulations as to where they can smoke. Forcing someone to breathe in harmful, possibly life-threatening smoke simply for standing next to you certainly counts as a crime with a victim in my books.

The thing about ecstacy is that it's mostly used by teens, i.e., people who can't give informed consent. I definitely think that it, along with all other drugs, should be restricted to people 21 or older. At least by then their brain will be fully developed and they won't enter into something they might regret because of immaturity/lack of knowledge.

"War doesn't prove who's right, only who's left." "Every saint has a past, every sinner has a future."

The drinking age of 21 is an aberration. People between 18 and 21 are legal adults. They're perfectly capable of giving meaningful consent.

And why shouldn't teens be able to give consent? Perhaps we should increase freedom for youngsters. A 15 year old is young, but he's not a kid.

You could also NOT impose sin taxes. The patents on most drugs surely have expired by now: They could be produced as cheap generics. Even with a sales tax, they'd be much cheaper than now. If heroin costs 20 cents a gram to produce, it could be sold at a few bucks a gram. Junkies wouldn't need to steal to pay for their fix. Why rob when panhandling would suffice?

The health issues junkies cause? We still end up paying for them. If you axzed the whole drug enforcement budget and allocated half for treatment, it'd be cheaper and more free.

edited 17th Apr '11 10:13:10 AM by SavageHeathen

You exist because we allow it and you will end because we demand it.