20 October 2008

Victimless Crimes


Do victimless crimes only have a negative impact on the person who is participating in the activity or does society suffer as well?

15 comments:

theBaraness said...

yooo first commenttttttt

anyways:

My opinion is that victimless crimes only have a negative impact on the person who is participating in the activity. Society does not suffer. For example doing drugs or prostitution only affects the person committing these acts. No one else is hurt in the process. I do not find that doing drugs, on your own, responsibly, causes harm to anyone but yourself (if that even). I only find it to be harmful if the person follows up with something. For example if someone just did drugs on their own, and then operates a car or machinery. In that case, someone can get hurt, but only because the person failed to be responsible in a sense. Just like it is legal to drink alcohol and be intoxicated in private, it is not legal to then jump in a car and start driving. The initial act of crimes such as drug use or prostitution do not cause any hard on society unless reckless actions are taken place afterwards.

S.Costa said...

Victimless crimes don't effect society, it would only effect the people who are commiting the crimes. A victimless crime is a crime like prostitution it doesnt effect anyone unless the hooker has an STD in which case the person who paided for his or her services would posible contract that and it could spread to other people.

Natalia said...

In my opinion, victimless crimes have a negative impact on both, the person participating as well as society which suffers from this. For example, prostitution only effects the person who chooses to follow this kind of behavior, but it also impacts the society as a whole. Society looks at prostitution as a negative behavior, and does not consider it as something that improves society. Illegal drug use also effects society, the participant who takes part in this action also influences the society as a whole into doing this. Also, vagrancy effects both the person committing it and the society. The person who is committing vagrancy, begs on to others, and loiters in some places. This has a negative influence on society because many people are bothered by this behavior since they see the beggars out on the streets asking them for change.

shayne munoz said...

In my opinion I believe that victimless crimes only have a negative impact on the people who are committing the crime/activity, society does not suffer. For example, when a person does illegal drugs or a person is a prostitute it only really affects themselves. Although there is different circumstances where victimless crimes may affect other people but these are very slim. Such as when a person does drugs and they overdose, and die. When they are found and brought into the morgue. This act now affects other people because they have to pay for the dead body and legally a dead body has to be buried and tax payers have to now pay. So all in all I believe that victimless crimes for the most part just affect the person and not society and when they mind there own business society goes on untouched. Its when they decide to bring there business into public that society is affected.

Melissa Florio said...

I believe that viciimless crimes have a negative effect only on the person commiting the crime. If you are involved in illegal drug use, you arent hurting anyone else by using them. Its your life that is getting effected, your health that will suffer and your money being waisted. When you watch the showes about drug addicts or alcoholics they are usually living in very bad conditions, whether it be their house is dirty or they are living out of their car. You are the one having to deal with those types of conditions not everyone around you. If you have a gambling problem its not everyone elses money that you are using its your own and you will be the one to suffer beacuse of that. The only way others could be effected in these situations is if it is people like your family or friends. They may go through pain becuase they are seeing you like that or they have to help you out when you ask for money. However other then that the only person that these actions have a negative influence on is yourself.

Little Bermudez said...

i think victimless crimes has negitive effects on both the user and society. Its negitive for both because it in a way promtes and tells people "look at me i like doing this and i think its a ok thing to do". In turn makes more people want to try and do it.

A Holzhauer said...

I would like to start out by saying agree with every thing the people above have said. Although the classification is misleading (a victimless crime), it really only has a negative affect on the offender. For insatnce, if I were to take illegal drugs and sit in my house all day and not do anything except sit, there would be no other victim except myself. No other person is really being affected by my action. Keep in mind that I'm not talking about if get high and start driving, I'm talking about literally the act of me taking the illegal drugs. Nobody but me would be harmed.

nicole scalise said...

In my opinion, i think that victimless crimes do affect both the person participating in the act and society as well. Although there is obviously a bigger negative impact on the individual committing the crime like most everyone said above,i still think that society is being affected. Unless you are a hermit and have no contact to the outside world, then you still have family and friends who would be affected by your bad choices. You can't live your life without considering the effect your actions have on others. That's just selfish. For example when you do drugs, you change as a person and this change in turn affects the relationships you have with others in a negative way.

Carl Fleming said...

I believe that victimless crimes have a negetive affect on both the individual and society. The negetive act the person is commiting may not directly affect any one but themselves but it can afffect those close to them. For example, a prostitute may disrespect themselves and may not feel that they are harming others but they may be doing harm to people that they are close with, like family. To conclude, the victimless acts are illegal and do not have positive affects on society.

Melissa Leroux said...

I believe that victimless crimes do have victims. I think that for an example, drugs have an impact on not only the perpetrator but also the people around the user too. Yes they are only hurting themselves physically, but they are ruining society around them and pushing the people who care for them away. So, victimless crimes always take tolls on the people around the abuser.

Brenda said...

"Victimless" crimes do have an impact on society. For example prostitution creates a negative and sinful environment where it takes place. It also negatively impact the person who paid for the services because of the diseases that they may get and pass on to future partners. Even though it was their choice, it was a bad one and if there werent prostitutes they couldnt make that choice.

Melissa A. said...

In my opinion, victimless crimes don't just affect the person doing it, they also affect the society. for instance, if someone is a prostitute walking around on the street, they are setting a bad example for any child that might see them. as a result that child might think they look "cool" and want to grow up to be a prostitute as well. with victimless crimes, i don't feel there are any short term affects on society, but definitely long term affects.

mohawk man said...

I think that victimless crimes are oximorons because they say that they only hurt the individual doing the crime. Like doing illegal drugs. It hurts the person doing the drug, but it also hurts all the other people that the original person indroduces to drugs. It also hurts the children of the person that is using the drug. And if the first person spreads the drug to other people and they have kids, then those kids are affected. That's confusing, but i can explain it better in person. And thats the real truth.

brianna said...

I think victimless crimes have a negative impact on the person who is participating in the activity as well as society. For example, doing drugs has a negative impact on the person participating. It has a negative impact because the person is hurting their life and their well being. They aren't caring about their health, money, and livelihood. Society is being affected by the person who is participating because after doing drugs, they can get into their car and start driving, thus involving other people and putting harm to their life. It also hurts society because your family and friends would be affected by it too. If someone is an addict and they need money to get what they need, then the person who is participating will go to their friends or family and ask for money or result to stealing it from them. It also hurts them because people who care about the person don't want to see their life go down and end up becoming nothing.

Anonymous said...

I think that victimless crimes have a negative impact both on the person who is participating in the activity as well as society. In some cases, the person who is participating in the activity is probably putting a greater negative impact on himself rather than on society but still both are affected. For example, drug use is a very common victimless crime. It hurts the person doing drugs greatly: his/her health, attitude, etc. While it hurts the person doing the activity it also hurt society. This activity can hurt family and friends in many different ways. Drug use sometimes leads to violent behavior and abuse. Another example is prostitution. The person chooses to act in the way that they do and some may think that they are only hurting themselves in this process but I think that society is also affected. This person does not do the bad act and then is isolated from society...that person is part of society and interacts with others in society which means that the bad affect is passed along.