Just out of curiosity, does anybody know what the biggest victimless crime is? That is, what crime carries the biggest prison sentence?
Credit card fraud and larceny all have victims… I’m thinking that buying large amounts of drugs, as long as you don’t sell or use them, would be a pretty big victimless crime…
Anybody?
Dunno about the biggest, but the most disproportionate sentence I heard of happened near my alma mater.
Every October, the rains begin in Washington State, and the psilocybe mushrooms start growing everywhere. Picking and eating these little hallucinogens was a pretty popular pasttime among the students.
One of my professors was a mycologist, and he told of testifying at the trial of a couple of students who were arrested by the police: the students had been alongside a busy road, picking psilocybe mushrooms fromt he roadside and putting them into a paper bag. They were facing 10-15 years in prison for possession of a schedule 1 controlled substance, IIRC.
The professor said he was trying to make the case that they were just picking mushrooms to identify later, that they didn’t know what they were getting. But it was pretty clear that that wasn’t the case.
How’s that for a big sentence for a victimless crime?
Daniel
IIRC the great train robbery was of condemned money, and certainly big (especially if you allow for inflation). Not quite what you’re looking for, though.
How about ‘being suspected of terrorist activity’? Not exactly a crime, but I think you can be locked up indefinately without having done anything.
But of course there was one victim of the Great Train Robbery.
The train driver was hit around the back of his head, and never fully recovered from the physical or mental trauma of that event.
Then you can add that the £5 note was redesigned partly as a result of that crime.
Then there was the cost to the economy, a large amount of cash that was to be taken out of circulation was not, and so it added, albeit in a minute way, to inflationary pressures on the UK economy.
LSD crimes carry some nutty sentences. When you are charged, the mandatory sentencing (no cite at the moment - but I can get some if you’d like) is based on weight of the drug PLUS the carrier. Therefore, someone can have a small vile of liquid LSD (100s of hits) and get a much lighter sentence than someone who has a few (but relatively much heavier) sugar cubes with one dose each. Very sad that folks have been put away for tens of years for such a small amount. It was based on a weird manner of statute writing, but the Supreme Court ruled that the disparity was constitutional. Again, I don’t have a cite at the moment but can get one if you’d like. The case is interesting reading.
15 years for mushrooms yet the Enron jerks, who stole billions, will get a slap on the wrist.
GRRR!
Why is the government just soooooooo afraid that someone’s gonna get high?
I saw a sign today:
No Parking - Fire Lane - $1000 and 12 Months
A year in jail for a parking violation??
If your house burned down because someone parked in that fire lane, you’d think $1000 and a year wouldn’t be nearly long enough. That’s a crime that has a high potential of having victims.
In terms of activity, I think the biggest victimless crime(s) are all those having to do with marijuana.
What about the sex industry?
Yeah, and there’s the rub. There really is no victimless crime when we imagine what the consequences could be. Very minor infraction X could possibly result in catastrophic pain & suffering Y. The marijuana thing seems pretty ridiculous until some bus driver get stoned and drives 30 school children into a ravine.
Straying dangerously near IMHO or Great Debate territory, but…
Attrayant: The act that causes harm in such a case is driving under the influence, not getting stoned in the first place. Assuming one is over the age of 21, the government doesn’t see a thing wrong with you getting drunk off your arse in the privacy of your own home, as no one is harmed but your liver. However, should you then decide to hop into your car and drive to the local grocery store, the cops will do their best to bust you.
Attempted murder, it’s not like anybody even gets killed and the perp gets sent away for how long?
Or are we talking about crimes where nobody is at risk of getting hurt at all?