Victimless Crime

Victimless crime is defined as a violation of community standards or an illicit act against a government policy or agency (Wisegeek, 2009) yet, which neither directly harms nor violates the rights of any specific person, although some people may claim it harms society as a whole. Many people consider such acts as drunk driving, prostitution, public drunkenness, assisting someone to die at his or her request, using drugs, white-collar crimes, and abortion to be victimless crimes. They feel, as though there are no individual victims for these crimes; no one is being hurt or directly affected, so there is no crime being committed. In this paper, I will discuss the effects that these crimes have not only on the individuals that commit the crimes but also the individuals that are affected by these crimes, and the reasons why I feel that there is no such thing as a victimless crime. I feel that in every crime that is committed, there is at least one person that will be affected and become the victim of the actions that were made by another individual, or even by himself or herself. For a person to be found guilty and punished for a crime, there must be a perpetrator and a victim of the act for it to be considered a punishable offense. Some incidents that can be considered a crime would include, but are not limited to, rape, burglary, murder, theft, and abuse. In all of these examples, there is a clear crime that was committed as well as a person that committed the crime and a person or persons that were affected by the crime that was committed. The problem with such crimes that are considered to be victimless crimes is that in many incidents, there is no clear and present victim, in the eyes of the law. I happen to disagree with the idea of there being victimless crimes. I believe that there are victims in each and every crime that is committed. Some of the crimes that are considered to be victimless, that I will discuss include drunk driving, prostitution,

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