Victimless Crime Is a Term Research Paper

This includes actions that could be considered detrimental to the individual (gambling, drugs, etc.) -- because the decision was made at the individual level (Hardaway, 2003).

Too, as the economic and political effects of globalization increase, the definition, prosecution, and attention to victimless crimes may sociologically change. Enforcing morality (e.g. prostitution and gambling), for instance, or black market goods and services may remain technically against the law, but may become so low a priority due to more serious matters. Indeed, international agencies are now taking the approach to crimes like illicit drugs of focusing on the suppliers who fail to pay taxes and thus hurt society, instead of the user. This also includes many of the underground financial crimes that have little societal or economic impact (Friedrichs, 2002). Drug use, specifically, is victimless because it is something the individual chooses to do, can do alone, and unless there is violence involved, does not harm another person.The user may be a victim of their own predilection or addiction, but they are cognizant of the harm and risk, just as someone who has too many drinks. The ancillary factors that surround drug use would go away, this view holds, if drug use was legalized. Further, the idea of morally telling someone else what they may or may not do to and with their bodies is outmoded (Stylianou, 2010).

Part 2 -- in the American justice system, there is an assumption that the punishment should fit the crime. One would expect a harsher penalty, for instance, for someone committing willful, premeditated murder than being caught smoking a marijuana cigarette......