Do victimless crimes only have a negative impact on the person who is participating in the activity or does society suffer as well?
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34 comments:
I believe that if you are committing a victimless crime then the only person who suffers is you. Society doesn’t suffer because someone does drugs or because someone is homeless. I think that those who chose to do drugs only hurt themselves unless they share a needle with someone else which is a more serious crime. Also, I believe that a prostitute isn’t harming anyone but themselves. If they are just having consensual sex with someone and there are no std's transmitted then they caused no harm to the other person. Overall, I believe that if you are unfortunate enough to commit such a crime then you aren’t harming anyone but yourself.
I think that victimless crimes dont hurt anyone, just the person who is committing the crime and that shows that it's negative towards theirself and sometimes others. I believe this because without someone else, other than youself, you cant really hurt them but that's only physically but mentally you can make someone feel "hurt". These crimes can sometimes hurt society because if there is a big drug dealer around and someones children are doing the drugs it might hurt the parents of those kids and they're concidered a part of society. In a different case, the person who is doing the drugs isn't physically hurting others, just themself.
I agree that victimless crimes negivally affect the person commiting the crime,but they also effect society as whole and friends/relatives indirectly. By doing drugs you're not directly hurting anyone else because it's not like you're forcing them to do drugs or anything but it harms them emotionally and possibly financially. In class you were telling us about someone you knew who's brother was addicted to meth and sold all of his family's belongings. The fact that he was doing drugs didn't directly affect his family until it drove him to sell all the things in his house. Drug addicts, homeless people, and prostitutes all negativly indirectly affect the society because they clearly make the crime rate go up which scares people who live around that area, and they cause many other problems such as problems with welfare and poeple abusing that opportunity. So directly, victimless crimes do not affect anybody but the person commiting it, but indirectly it affects everyone.
I agree with everything danielle wrote. Victimless crimes have negative impacts on the person participating in the activity and society. People that participate in victimless crimes like illegal gambling, drug use, or prostitution do hurt themselves one way or another. They also do effect people in society. One way is that they create a deviant surrounding to live in for others. Also they can promote these crimes to the younger generations of society
i think that society suffers as well so the title 'victimless crime' isnt accurate. when a person commits a crime against themself like drug abuse this can effect the drug user, drug users family and friends in negative ways such as death, stolen belongings, loss of money and so on. it effects society as a whole because drug rates/crimes go up--drug trafficking, more selling of drug, medical attention for the drug overdose and also a bad image for the country when another country previews us as a whole.
I believe that there is no victim in a victimless crime. The only possible victim can be the offender. For example, a drug user knows the risks of taking the drugs he uses but he does it anyway. There are no other people included in this crime and he is the offender. One person cannot be the offender and the victim. If a person commits the crime themselves, which involves only themselves, then there is no victim. In a victimless crime there is only an offender, no victim.
I believe that victimless crimes do affect society, for example if someone say a student and daughter from someone that attends school regularly and has lots of friends commited suicide, i think the student body, the friends and family of that girl would suffer including that person, because victimless crimes all they are doing in the end are hurting themselves more, but leave a mark on the society.
i believe that someone committing a victimless crime does not affect society it onlny affects the person committing the crime. someone getting addicted to drugs doesn't affect how society works. or a prostitute it only harms themselve, they can catch something, get injured. they're putting themselve at risk, and only them.
I believe victimless crimes have a negative affect on both the person committing the offense, and the society he/she is a part of. In cases of drug use or gambling, the offender is hurting themselves at first, damaging their health and/or throwing their life savings away. However, their addiction to the drug or gambling can get so out of hand that the properties and health of their loved ones could be at risk. The offender can bet and give away valuables that don't belong to them, which could endanger and possibly "hurt" another individual. An example of this type of situation would be if someone was so extremely addicted to cocaine, he started selling valuables of his family and friends without them knowing, such as a car. Sale of the car would be hurtful to the owner. Therefore, a victimless crime, such as drug use, can change into a crime that hurts others, which illustrates the fact that victimless crimes not only have a negative affect on the offender aka victim, but the society as well.
I deffinetly agree with Melissa. Victimless crimes have an impact on the person that is committing the act, for example drugs, gambaling, and prostitution. They are just hurting themselves physically, emotionally, and fincially. However, people that are around victimless crimes can be impacted as well. I know that when my cousin was on drugs our whole family was impacted. We saw a loved one going down hill in a way that wasn't the "norm" of our family. It really hurt us to see that and impacted family events when he showed up in that stage. Also, when someone is risking their life savings on gambaling they might have a family to feed and support that could be impacted. That action that they took upon themselves can put the family at risks to even become homeless and hungry.
Victimless crimes do affec the person but they also affect the society in a inderect way. If a drug dealer is selling drugs outside of a school, he is not only putting himself at risk and hurting his own life but his also putting the people he seels the drugs to in danger, If any of the those customers become addicts it will be becouse of him. Victimless crimes do affect society even if its not in an obvious way. Drug addicts, drug dealers, and many other victimless criminals affect our society becouse they couse the crminal rate to go up and may influence the people that associate with them to follow thier lifestyle.
Victimless crimes affect the person who is committing then directly but they also affect society as a whole indirectly. I feel it is based on the crime which is committed as well. For example, people who commit victimless acts such as prostitution are hurting themselves selling themselves for sex. There are other ways to get money which dont envolve then risks that prostitution bring upon someone. Drugs affect the person who is taking them, allowing yourself th ability to get "high" hurts your body, where it can also hurt those who you are close to. Even if you arent hurting someone physically, you still can hurt them emotionally.
I do think that victimless crimes have a negative impact on the society as well not only for the person that does it. I think that because for example, if a person hangs themselves, not only that person kills hurts himself or most of the time dies, but the family and friends have to deal with that loss. Some people might blame themselves and sometimes hurt themselves as well. So yes it has a huge impact on the person as well as the society.
The impact of the victimless crime depends on the crime itself. If you are a single, jobless person who is caught with possession of drugs, the only person who suffers is that person. However, if that person has a job or family, then they are affected as well as the offender. In addition, if someone is arrested for prostitution, they hurt every person they slept with because those "customers" could have contracted a disease or become emotionally attatched to the prostitute and then been heartbroken.
Not to dodge the question, but to some extent the very question has to be critiqued or no valuable answer can be reached.
Words like "victim" and phrases like "negative consequences" are very subjective. I don't like using them due to the very fact that if you use them in any debate, it will usually dissolve into an argument over how to define these words.
I also don't like people's tendency to gravitate to one extreme or the other on the subject. Underneath the category of victimless crime we have both drug use and prostitution. I personally have very different and complex views for these two things. To try to speak of them as they are both one and come up with a sentence that accurately reflects my views is very difficult.
So I will say my piece without these words and you can apply the words as they fit your definitions. Individual actions do effect larger society. Because society is made up of individual actions. So crimes do effect society. This includes crimes we've been calling victimless.
The impact these crimes have on society are incredibly wide and varying. Though often times the effects an action can have aren't actually very reflective of the action itself. If we're willing and able to trace the consequences of our actions far enough we might find alot of the things we did may have had unwanted results... even if we consider the actions themselves to have been appropriate choices.
Your average drug user is probably less connected to the funding of terrorism than the man who invented the baseball bat is connected to some mentally unstable person using a baseball bat to kill someone. They may seem on some gut level to be different, but only because we are fixated on guilt and blame. Guilt and blame by the way are two other words which will dissolve any discussion into a word game.
Ultimately I'm just not comfortable trying to speak in these terms. Or more importantly, to THINK within these terms. Each action must be judged individually and based on the specific situation. Consequences should be considered in a concrete and observable manner. These concepts just don't fit into that.
I don't want to seem scatter brained, but something just occurred to me.
If indeed a crime has an offender, but no victim. Why punish the offender?
Does it make sense to want to punish someone who doesn't have a negative effect on society. What are they being punished for? What goes through a persons head when they believe simultaneously that a crime has no negative effect on society, but that the criminal still deserves to be punished? What does that say about that persons view of punishment?(well, it doesn't really make sense to "punish" anyone at all, but lets work within the paradigm that it does).
I think a victimless crim has an impact on both the person committing the crime and it impacts society too. Because it's basicly the persons idea to commit the crime, even though it might help them out in a way, it'll hurt them in a long run. It also hurts society because it cases steriotypes and it makes others think less of socitey
VIctimless crimes don't have a direct affect on society, but rather an influence on it. If you have a drug user who is not doing any harm to anyone just himself, even though he doesn't cause harm to any person, someone can be influenced to do drugs too. We wouldn't have other drug users if people weren't influenced to do drugs by other drug users, whether it be peer pressure or just seeing the effects.
Victimless crimes directly hurt the people participating in them, as well as, family members or friends. For example, a person who does illegal drugs is harming themselves, their health, their social life, etc. However, their actions are also impacting those who are close to them in a very negative way, whether it be violence, stealing, or just having to watch a person's soul just completely disappear through drug use. All of the above are detrimental. I feel that victimless crimes may also harm society to an extent. In the case of prostitution, the adults having consensual sex, are only harming themselves at that point in time, however, later on they could effect others. For example, STD's and other illnesses could be transmitted from one partner to another, this causes harm to more than just the people involved. Prostitution also encourages infidelity, in some cases. High infidelity rates can lead to more sexually transmitted diseases being spread, or more ruined marriages. Now you have disrupted the lives of friends, family, and society. Victimless crimes will never truly be victimless, we'll all suffer, whether it be directly or indirectly, now or in the future, it is guaranteed.
I think victimless crimes effect the person and society. Take drugs for an example. A person starts using drugs, and at first all their hurting is them selves. But later on they lose their job because they arn't reliable, so they start breaking the law by stealing money or selling drugs themselves in order to get money to buy their drugs and survive. Through this maybe they put a strain on their family, leaving their family depressed or turning their lives upside down in order to support the druggy. This is an example of society being effected by what at first was a victimless crime. So what may seem victimless at first can eventually have an impact on society.
I don't think victimelss crime have any effect on society because in victimless crime, the victim is basically the person who did the crime for example, suicide, if a person commits suicide it affcet on that person it doesn't affcet the society. Athough the person's family has grief on that person's death but it will not effect the society. people that uses drugs that also have same cause becaues they are hurting themselves for doing this crime. in my opinion you are only hurting yourselves by doing victimless crime and it will not affect the society at any point.
i think that victimless crime hurts both the individual and the society. i think so because when a person does a crime like uses drugs and gets caught and goes to jail for it the family of that person will be very upset and hurt, so they might want to express their opinion and get other people involved so that they have support and can get their child out of jail. another example how victimless crime would hurt the society is how a drug user might be looked upon on by kids that are younger and they think that drugs are cool and they would experiment with them. so they could be associated with the drug user and maybe the drug user would start giving the younger kids drugs and ruining their lives, which will then get the parents involved with this matter and they'll be very hurt from it.
Victimless crime is exactly what it sounds like...victimless. You are only hurting yourself and society will still go on. With drugs i believe that it is victimless because almost everyone in society has taken part in some drug use in their lifetime and yet most of society still goes on just fine. In the case of drug addicts i believe that only a small percentage of people are reduced to that level and that is not the case with most of society. Just look at Amsterdam who has legalized most forms of drugs in their country. They have succeeded in making drugs boring to kids and other potential drug users. Its not as exciting when its legal. Gambling i believe will happen with or without it being illegal so there's no need to punish the offenders. I think that rehabilitation and counseling should be offered to offenders of these victimless crimes but no legal action because the only people there are hurting are themselves.
Victimless crime is exactly what it sounds like...victimless. You are only hurting yourself and society will still go on. With drugs i believe that it is victimless because almost everyone in society has taken part in some drug use in their lifetime and yet most of society still goes on just fine. In the case of drug addicts i believe that only a small percentage of people are reduced to that level and that is not the case with most of society. Just look at Amsterdam who has legalized most forms of drugs in their country. They have succeeded in making drugs boring to kids and other potential drug users. Its not as exciting when its legal. Gambling i believe will happen with or without it being illegal so there's no need to punish the offenders. I think that rehabilitation and counseling should be offered to offenders of these victimless crimes but no legal action because the only people there are hurting are themselves.
i belive victimless crimes only have a negative impact on the person who is participating in the activity because there is no victim other then themselve. If a person commits suicide sure it hurts his/her family emotionally but in the end there is only one fatality and thats HIM/HERSELF. If a person decides to do drugs they are only putting themself in danger becuase in the end themself is going to have to deal with medical issues nobody else. A prositute is only hurting themself becuase they are making a choice to have sex for money nobody else needs to be involve.
If someone is committing a victimless crime it is only hurting the person who is committing it. But when someone is committing these crimes over and over again, it could potentially lead to more serious crimes such as prostitution could turn to rape, and drug abuse could lead to violence. Yes, on a smaller scale victimless crimes are not hurting anyone but themselves. But you never know where these crimes can lead to.
Victimless crimes hurt the person committing the crime and society. When a person is gambling to the point it becomes a sickness, society suffers because the gambler cannot pay for their rent, and other bills. That would effect other people. A drug addict is hurting themselves, but also society because they would begin to steal from others to get their drugs.
In my opinion a victimless crime does have a negative on the person and as well as on society. The reason I think that is because every person on earth affects another individual in some way or another. For example when one person is in a bad mood and they express their anger or heartache to someone else then that other person can also develop a bad mood too, even though it may not be internal; and the chain of events probably continue. Thus a person committing a victimless crime can effect in the end society as a whole.
There are two different ways to look at a Victimless crime. In most cases, yes it only affects yourself but say,for example, the drug dealer goes to jail, it also affects society because that drug dealer is inflicting harm and trying to pursue someone else to follow his ways and do drugs themselves. Granted, the person who the drug dealer is selling to is committing a victimless crime themselves, but they wouldn't have done the crime if they weren't influenced by another person. In the end result, don't do the crime if you're not willing to pay the time because if you play you pay. Society is affected by the person committing the crime in the sense of the fact that we pay the government to keep all of these convicts in jail away from society. Overall, when doing drugs you are not physically hurting anyone else but yourself so the truth in the matter is, is that no one cares what anyone else does and they don't care if that person hurts themselves because we are all self centered which is the truth in all matters not just these.
I believe victimless crimes effect both the person committing the crime as well as the society as a whole. People who commit crimes such as prostitution are only physically hurting themselves selling themselves for sex. Or drug use the person is really hurting themselves getting addicted, high and destroying their body as well as their life. But I also believe victimless crimes can hurt those around you, close friends and family that know you can do better. Victimless crimes don’t hurt people around you physically but they can emotionally.
Victimless crimes affect the person committing the act, but also affects society as a whole. By using drugs, you are obiously affecting your own health, but you are taking another functional member of society, and also, hurting the loved one around you. This will affect the victim himself more than those around him, unless they get involved, like the story you told in class of your friend from school.
When a victimless crime is committed, there is more than one person suffering. You, and your family suffers, and so does the rest of society. A person who does drugs causes suffering in the comunity and within their family. It affects their job, and everyone around them.
Committing a victimless crime not only effects the person but also the society as well. A person committing a victimless crime, such as a drug user or prostitute hurts themselves by damaging their body by taking drugs or selling themselves. These actions also effect the families of the deviant, as well as a the society. Society suffers as well because a deviant person brings society down as a whole, because many people commit victimless crimes not knowing that they have made their society harder to become more stable. The more victimless crimes in society the more serious crimes may become. For example, a drug user, often have no support system or way to get money, therefore they commit crimes, such as robbery, murder, and embezzlement to get money. As a result, victimless crimes effect the person as well as society.
i do believe that being "victimless" meaning no-one else but the person commiting the crime, if the person who commits the crime has stong bonds with family an/or society, than I think it makes others suffer emotionally as well.
Society can also suffer if the victim is a major part of society, thus ruining their reputation or something like zat.
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