My first reaction to “victimless crime” is: “well, if nobody’s getting hurt, why should anyone get upset?” However, I think this may be a little simplistic. Now, what exactly is a “victimless crime”? If a drunk driver doesn’t kill anybody, is it not a crime? What about somebody who runs red lights, drives on the wrong side of the road, and goes 150 mph? Now, in his little Sunday drive, nobody gets hurt, but he causes a lot of people to nearly have a heart attack and sends them swerving all over the road. Should anything be done about this guy? What about somebody who fires a submachine gun into a crowd, yet nobody gets hurt? Do we just say “whew, glad he missed me” and go on our merry way? Should doing an activity that could be very dangerous to others be against the law?
I don’t think I’ve ever heard the term victimless crime used in the sense you illustrate here. I use the term for cases in which the illegal activity is voluntarily undertaken by an adult and harms nobody but him/herself (e.g., drug use, prostitution). The activities you mention are all very likely to harm another non-consenting person. We can’t make every potentially risky activity illegal, but I think it’s only reasonable to cover the ones that involve motor vehicles and firearms.
Gray areas, in my opinion, include helmet laws and seatbelt laws. Yes, if you fall off your motorcycle and die, you only harm yourself, but if you do something stupid and involve me in the accident, it would be nice if I had at least a chance of not killing you. I also think that a blanket “everyone wears a seatbelt” law is a much easier-to-enforce way of making sure that morons at least keep their children buckled up than just requiring restraints for children would be.
Hm, OK. So a “victimless crime” is one in which you can only harm yourself. Now, what about drug laws? [Warning: Argument to come may not reveal personal opinions of justifiability of laws, I’m simply hashing through the logic here] Now, with drunk driving you’ve very likely to drive badly and kill someone, right? So it is not called a victimless crime. If taking heroin makes you very likely to steal, is it not then a victimless crime?
Well, in that case, isn’t the problem solved by simply prosecuting the person for the crime they have committed, rather than prosecuting drug users as a group for crimes they might commit? It’s different than the lucky drunk driver example: A drunk who chooses to drive has already taken a significant step toward harming someone else.
Besides, where does it end? Being born male makes you significantly more likely to commit a violent crime. Should we outlaw boys?
Here’s a quick example of a victimless crime: open-container laws.
In most, if not all, it’s against the law to have an open container that has contained alcohol–even a paper cup.
I’m not about to defend DUI/DWI. That is different from having a passenger who wants to consume a legal beverage.
No one is going to get hurt, but it’s illegal. Doesn’t matter that the driver registers a 0.00. It’s the fact that there is an open container.
(And if you’re wondering, no, this has not happened to me.)
Of course my interest lies in sodomy laws. Two people (hets as well as homos) having consensual sex in the privacy of their own home. This remains a crime in some states. Why?
Esprix
How is it different? Driving drunk affects a lot of people’s judgement, so they drive badly. Taking heroin impairs your judgment, making you more likely to steal.
Exactly. Where do we draw the line about “dangerous to others” based on likelyhood that someone will hurt another person? Why is drunk driving not victimless, but heroin is?
As to the sodomy laws, well, they’re just lame. You’d have to come up with some sort of theory about how homosexuality is harmful to others to justify them, and I don’t even want to try to think up one. Kick 'em off the books. It’s tough for a politician to do so, though; they’re too squeamish. Maybe I’ll run a campaign based on getting them off the books. “Vote YES to sodomy!”. 
Let me toss into the mix the idea of reasonable foresight.
If you drive drunk, it is very forseeable that you’ll damage someone else. The law acts to criminalize dangerously negligent behavior, even if it doesn’t happen to harm someone, because society has a legitimate interest in protecting our highways from the danger of drunk drivers.
Heroin use (noting, of course, that heroin is a controlled substance and possessing it is not generally legal) doesn’t directly create a victim, nor is it reasonably forseeable that there will be a victim as a direct result of its use.
I suggest that, if you want to create a class of “victimless crimes,” that that is the touchstone to use.
Drug use, prostitution, sodomy, and pornography (assuming consenting adults for all) fall into this category.
- Rick
No, that comparison doesn’t hold up.
The law imposes a duty of care on the operator of a car – they must have a reasonable ability to safely drive the car. The intoxicated person probably does not. In order to ease the administration of justice, the law creates certain presumptions: if the blood alcohol content of a driver exceeds .08, the driver is presumed unable to safely drive the car, and therefore has put at risk the victims - the others on the road.
In the case of heroin, there is no such presumption. There are many ways of financing a heroin habit. The law, granted, criminalizes heroin, but not because of the view that a victim (other than the user thereof) was put in danger.
- Rick
Gaudere: There’s ample evidence that driving a car while intoxicated constitutes an clear and present threat to other people.
There is no evidence, however, that heroin usage per se constitutes such an obvious threat of theft. True, there is a statistical correlation, but
On the whole, drug use per se is indeed a “victimless crime.”
However, I think the dangers of certain activities (e.g. using addictive drugs like heroin or tobacco/nicotine, not wearing a seatbelt or a helmet) far outweigh any potential benefit. So much so that the activity calls into question the basic level of intelligence of that person to the point where it is arguable that they are too stupid to give consent.
I say this with all humility, and I understand the irony, having smoked cigarettes for almost 20 years.
“Reality is that which, when you stop believing in it, doesn’t go away”. - Phillip K. Dick
Bricker, SingleDad, I agree my herion/drunk driving comparision is somewhat specious. I am just trying to get a better “feel” for where “reasonable foresight” (good term, BTW, Bricker) holds sway. We can reasonably forsee ill effects to others from drunk driving; can we reasonably forsee the same from drug use?
Well, here’s another factor to consider. One reason that there is crime in connection with drug use is that the illegality of the drugs allows suppliers to charge ridiculous prices for them. If everyone could grow opium poppies in their backyard and cook up a batch on the weekend they wouldn’t need to steal to support the habit. Silly, I know, but not entirely irrelevant. What do you think.
Gaudere wrote:
Hey! Let’s criminalize cigarette smoking!
After all, we can “reasonably forsee” the harm caused by cigarette smoking. (Second-hand smoke, long-term health care costs and the resultant unfair burden on the non-smoking segment of society, etc., etc.)
OK, I’m being sarcastic. But the logic seems to hold. The only difference is that the dangers to others are a little less immediate for the cigarette smoker than is the case with the drunk driver. Is immediacy of the anticipated harm another factor we must consider?
Drinking and drug use are victimless until they get behind the wheel of a car or the barrel of a gun, at which point they garner intent. That’s the line I see.
Unless, of course, the guy being robbed is doing so consensually… {hee hee hee}
But in these specific instances, there is another factor to consider - alcohol and drug use has the potential to impair judgment, and the user might hurt himself.
Esprix
It does seem that immediacy and degree of harm come into play here. We don’t outlaw obesity or cigarette smoking, but cocaine and drunk driving seem to have speedier and more harmful effects, so they get laws against them.
Gaudere,
I think the heroin/ drunk driving issue can be resolved like this.
When you are driving drunk you are posing an immediate threat to people around you. furthermore, beyond the legal limit, there is no such thing as a safe drunk driver. Finally you are not being arrested for being drunk in itself, but for driving drunk.
When you do heroin you may be more likely to steal, but the threat of you’re doing so is not imminent. Furthermore not all heroin users steal. I don’t think Boy George jacked too many car stereos. Finally if you do steal to feed your habit, you are being arrested for stealing not for being high. Hmm, lets say you are being arrested for the victimless crime of being high and the victimous (I made a word!) crime of stealing.
Or think of it like this. If you are driving along and see some out of control driver, you’re going to feel pretty nervous and give the guy a wide birth. If you see somebody nodding off from heroin you might feel sad, but I doubt if you immediately fear for your life.
BTW, in the earlier examples I didn’t mean YOU specifically, well, you know what I mean.
Perked Ears indicate curiosity - Know Your Cat
We may be moving in that direction.
It is comparatively recently that the extent of the dangers of second-hand smoke have become widely known. Knowing what we do now, you could make the case that smoking in a public area, where you are exposing others to the smoke, is not a victimless activity.
But this doesn’t lead to the conclusion that we should ban cigarettes, just as the drunk driving discussion did not compel a conclusion that we ban alcohol. The danger to others arises from the driving, not the booze; from the public smoke exposure, not all smoking.
True. But the gravamen of this discussion is “victimless crime”. That is, does the activity involve a victim, or is it reasonably foreseeable that the direct result of the activity will involve a victim? There’s little question that drug use, alcohol use, and tobacco use all carry with them the substantial risk of harm to the user. The question we must answer is: is there a victim apart from the user?
Hmmm.
Or does harm to the user mean that he is a victim, in the context of analyzing the meaning of “victimless crime?”
Beats me.
- Rick
I honestly believe that “victimless crime” is a badly defined label. I much prefer “consensual crime” in that it implies that those who involved do so by their own consent.
When I drive, I am consenting to share the road with other licensed drivers capable of operating their motor vehicles safely. That consent is part and parcel of the licensing process I went through - so many hours of student driving, a couple of driving tests (written and driven), a vision test, proof of insurance and so on.
If someone operates their car in an recklessly unsafe capacity - they are drunk, their car has no brake lights, they refuse to abide by traffic laws - they are violating my consent, putting me in danger, and thus, committing a crime.
However, if someone is shooting heroin in the privacy of their bedroom, I am in no danger. If someone’s hiring a prostitute three blocks from me, the transaction does not endanger me or my belongings. If one of my friends decides to give her girlfriend a little oral gratification in the privacy of their hotel room, I am not in any way involved. Those are all consensual crimes, and I am not injured in them in any way. Neither is anyone one else.
However, if the heroin addict attempts to rob me, or the john beats up his hooker and leaves her for dead, or that friend of mine decides to tear the hotel drapes up and tie her girlfriend up with them to get a little more kinky, it is no longer consensual. Some person or their property has been harmed, and they did not consent to it. Then, it’s a real crime, and one worthy of prosecution.
Hence my point, although I don’t have an answer. At what point does the law have the right to step in and say, “You are doing harm to yourself, and we, as a society, should responsibly prevent that from happening.” You don’t get arrested for being a drunk and get sent to rehab, only if you get caught drinking and driving - same goes for drug use.
Obviously cocaine and heroin are already illegal, so posessing them would get you put in jail. But alcohol and cigarettes are legal, yet can lead to self-harm.
Esprix
Exprix wrote:
And there’s the crux of the debate, in my view. Why do we draw the line east of alcohol and cigarettes, but west of cocaine and heroin? Why is one class of drugs legal, another banned?
Seems to me that they should all be legal, and that people should make their own decisions about whether or not to use them. We sure would spend a lot less money on law enforcement and prisons that way.
Save the prison space for criminals who have victims other than themselves.