- victimless crimes
-
Crime where there is no apparent victim and no apparent pain or injury. This class of crime usually involves only consenting adults in activities such as prostitution, sodomy, and gambling where the acts are not public, no one is harmed, and no one complains of the activities.Some groups advocate legalizing victimless crimes by removing these acts from the law books.Other critics complain that there is no such thing as a victimless crime; whenever one of these crimes is committed but goes unpunished, individual mores, societal values, and the rule of law are undermined or compromised, rendering society itself the victim.
Dictionary from West's Encyclopedia of American Law. 2005.
- victimless crimes
-
Crime where there is no apparent victim and no apparent pain or injury. This class of crime usually involves only consenting adults in activities such as prostitution, sodomy, and gambling where the acts are not public, no one is harmed, and no one complains of the activities.Some groups advocate legalizing victimless crimes by removing these acts from the law books.Other critics complain that there is no such thing as a victimless crime; whenever one of these crimes is committed but goes unpunished, individual mores, societal values, and the rule of law are undermined or compromised, rendering society itself the victim.
Short Dictionary of (mostly American) Legal Terms and Abbreviations.
