Question

Should courts treat certain crimes people often see as “victimless,” such as drug possession crimes and prostitution, differently than other offenses? What about offenses that are technically minor, such as shoplifting small-value items, but are not victimless (i.e., the retailer is hurt)? Should legislatures set different kinds of ranges for these types of offenses or make more diversion options available?

Answer 1

The victimless crimes are those crimes in which no party is harmed. Examples of such crimes include drug trafficking, prostitution, gambling etc. These are illegal acts which take place with mutual consent between parties. In such cases only the police officers will pose the complaint. These crimes have long term implications on the society and the punishments for such crimes are usually big.

Although there are strict laws to prevent victimless crimes and to punish the offenders, it also gives chances of bribery of the police since there is no party which wants the offenders to be punished other than police. This reduces the credibility of the police force. It is also possible for the police to include their enemies in such cases. Here also the reputation of the police will be under stake. Yet another situation is that the police require application undercover operations in order to catch these offenders, which the public may not understand. Thus although there are strict laws and punishments for these cases most of them go unnoticed or are not convicted unless the police force is strong enough to oppose these illegal tasks.

In the case of the small crimes such as shoplifting, since there will be victims, it is easy for the offenders to get punished although their crime is much less compared to the victimless crimes, which affect the society or generations as a whole. Even if they are easy to get convicted, the punishments are usually less compared to the victimless crimes. If the victimless crimes are going unpunished, it is the inefficiency of the police force to gather sufficient evidences against them.

Thus it can be seen that, the victimless crimes are more serious from the point of view of the society compared to a small crime with victim. Although there are bigger punishments for these crimes, in most cases they escape punishments because the police is the only complainant against them and if the police is not strong enough to provide evidence, the laws cannot be blamed.