Victimless Crime

Victimless Crimes “A victimless crime is an offense that is consensual and lacks a complaining participant,”(Schur, 1965; Meier and Geis, 1997). Victimless crimes are crimes lacking grievances since it is believed that there are no victims. The crimes typically implicate eager accomplices that break the law, and since nobody makes any complaints to the authorities regarding these crimes it makes it difficult for authorities to make an arrest and prosecute the offenders. The approximated financial cost of these victimless crimes is typically founded on money spent on possessions and illegal services like drugs, gambling, and sex. Illegal immigration inflicts a huge cost both financially and crime related on American society. Scholar Heather MacDonald from the Manhattan Institute explains only a sliver of what is a larger problem, “In Los Angeles, 95 percent of all outstanding warrants for homicide target illegal aliens, as do approximately two-thirds of all fugitive felony warrants. More than 60 percent of the Hispanic gangs in Southern California—whose membership is in the tens of thousands—are illegal. These gangs involved with drug-distribution schemes, extortion, drive-by assassinations, assaults, and robberies,” (Heather MacDonald). Is Illegal immigration a victimless crime, well lets see. Illegal immigrates who cross our borders come the United States for a better life but then you have those who either commit unthinkable crimes or are victims of a crime. Those who cross our borders come from all countries. Illegal immigrants were mostly Irish and Chinese arriving to work on the railroads, which the government was very much involved in the illegal entrance as is so today. A study done in 2006 lead by the Border Counties Coalition ranked that the number crimes committed along the border of Mexico are drugs, those involved with children, and immigration crimes. The study also showed that at least 24% of those who cross our borders are criminals. Most