The Decriminalization Of Victimless Crimes

It is common knowledge that crime exists all over the world and that justice and punishment may vary in different countries and societies. However, how justice and punishment is enforced in a society and globally is not common knowledge. Global justice refers to the belief that the world is unjust; while social justice, in a manner of speaking, refers to the fair treatment of everyone in a society.(“Social Justice”). Both social and global justice value human rights, remove inequality, and holds people accountable for fair practices.(“Social Justice”). If someone commits the same crime as another person, for example, they should receive the same punishment. That is what most people would be inclined to believe, but in the reading “The Moral Ambivalence of Crime in an Unjust Society” by Jeffrey Reiman, crime and justice is reviewed and defined in an uncommon way. Reiman discusses justice in a society where a crime was committed against him and his wife.

The Sage Dictionary of Criminology (2013) defines victimisation as “…a term originally used to designate an area of study concerned to address the relationship between the victim and offender.” It should be noted however that since the late 1970s, the term has

Lombroso also said, the criminal man and woman could be identified by having bad teeth,extra fingers and toes, projecting lips and abnormalities in the nose and ears. My thoughts started to expand and made me wonder if there is such a thing as ‘‘victimless’’ crime? Why are certain crimes identified as criminal? Who are the type of people to commit crimes? What are their activities? These are just a few questions I find engaging, which made me more determined to study this insightful course. Crime is damaging humanity and the society of today's generation. For example, the fear of crime makes the people who live in high crime communities feel unsafe and also makes it unattractive for new businesses to established in such areas . My attitude to life is that all human beings must try to follow and obey the law. It is impossible for everybody to be perfect but we have a duty to put our civil rights into

In our day-to-day life, it is inevitable that someone will do or say things that will hurt or upset us. In the same way, laws were created to guide people, curb crime, and restore law and order in the society but still people happen to break laws despite the existence of law. However, someone may ask what is the best way of dealing with criminal behavior? Should the society embrace the concept of “an eye for an eye” or “get to the root” of the problem, or just simply to focus on and assist the victim (Schmalleger & Smykla, 2012 pg. 12)? Many studies conducted by criminal justice scholars in line with this debate point towards punishment to crimes committed as the most acceptable means of dealing with an injustice for most societies. However, still the moral basis for punishment is a conflicting issue that has given rise to numerous competing views. This paper will address reasons why an eye for an eye is the best means of dealing with criminal behavior and not focusing on the victim nor getting to the root cause of criminal behavior (Akers, 2013).

As we learned in class last week, victimless crime can be one of many things. Victimless crime is defined as a crime taking place where there are no harmful injuries done from one person to another. Instead, the damage being done is committed by the individual who is committing the crime. Some examples of a victimless crime are, Drug use, prostitution, gambling, suicide, traffic citations and trespassing.

Laws originated from localism and were often controlled by ecclesiastical courts until the medieval age ended. Laws were influenced heavily by the idea of localism, which commonly revolved around the need for local goods, local government, and a local justice system. Often crime was defined by ecclesiastical courts; crimes involving morality or violations of the church’s conception of sin were handled locally. However, after the introduction of Roman law, the power to define crime became a duty of the ruler (Brackett, John 1999). The state had complete authority to define crimes, even crimes of morality. The accusatorial method had been the popular choice until the introduction of the inquisitorial method which was based on Roman law. However, it was said “This form of prosecution gave little power to judges.” (Crime and Punishment 2004).

In this essay, I will discuss what type of conduct I believe should be criminalised and why this is so. Because criminalisation stigmatizes individuals, it is something that we should be careful with. Being labelled as a murderer has a very high impact on one’s life, whether it is to find a job, a home or just to create relationships; people get blamed for being wrongdoers. Therefore, I believe that offensive conduct should not be criminalised, most of the time at least. The mere judgement of something to be “offensive” is subjective; who is to decide what is offensive and what is not? To criminalise harm done to others, I agree, as does mostly everyone else; it is very uncontroversial as a principle. Indeed, even though there is two views of the harm principle which I will discuss later on, intellectuals agree that this type of conduct should be prohibited. For what other types of conduct should be criminalised, I share Feinberg 's view that other principles never justify criminalization.

A person who experiences a traumatic event may be expected to experience a range of psychological effects, and, for many years, it was assumed that these psychological effects would be the same regardless of the cause of the injury. However, a growing body of knowledge is demonstrating that the impact of criminal victimization is different than the impact of other types of injuries because the intent element makes a difference in how the victim perceives the harm. In addition, victims of different crimes may respond differently to victimization. The psychological effects of victimization are important because they can help guide the criminal justice system for how to interact with victims and how to make the process more victim-appropriate. For example, victims of violent crimes, like sexual assaults, may benefit more from a victim-centered criminal justice approach than victims of other types of crimes (Resick, 1987). However, one of the problems with the traditional approach to victimology is that it has distinguished between different groups of victims. Emerging research suggest that victim needs are similar across the entire spectrum of crime, particularly the victims' needs for information about the crime and the needs for financial restitution to make them whole (ten Boom & Kuijpers, 2012).

Victimless crimes, the illegal act(s) that involves consenting adults and lacks a complaining participant, have been the topic of heated debate for some time now (Kendall, 2014). This debate centers primarily on the question as to whether these acts should be crimes at all. The arguments take several forms. One of the controversies involves the importance of personal freedom versus society’s idea to uphold moral standards. A second issue addresses the problem of the conception of harm. People who stand on this side on this side of the argument raise questions as to whether victimless crimes are harmful not only to the participants but to others in society as well. More importantly, they ask whether such acts result in negative

The traditional criminal justice system is criticized for its neglect of victim importance and needs, for example (Symonds, 1980) acknowledges, that the criminal justice system is concerned about looking back at the event rather than focusing on how to rehabilitate and as a consequence making victims be in a ‘secondary victimization’ effect. This is the attitudes, behaviors and the beliefs of the people in the criminal

1) Victimless crime can be defined as those types of actions and behavior that are illegal, although they do not affect the safety and personal rights of others. Individuals or groups of persons can commit victimless crimes. In cases that involve more than one person, only those capable of consenting to the actions are guilty of this type of crime (Liberal Democratic Party, 2009).

In this paper I will be talking about a couple of different crimes against people. Also according to statistics where you are more lightly to be a victim of one of these crimes. These statistics also show if your nationality might have an impact on you becoming a victim. Crimes against people can come in different forms unfortunately and from different people. So you never know who might committee the crime or against whom unless they have a pattern in killing for instance serial killers usually have a pattern. Any direst harm or force against another person. For instance stalking is a crime against a person because it does not require a threat or physical force to be a crime. As you learn more about these crimes you will notice that for

From the beginning of time there have always been crimes against persons. People went by the saying “An eye for an eye”. You stole from your neighbor, they stole from you. You hurt someone, they hurt you. It wasn’t until the 1940’s people started taking a closer look into these crimes against person, which they later called victimology. This paper will look into victimology and their theories as we go back into the past and how victimology is now.

The history of victimology travels further back in time than most would realize. The concept of the victim emerged from the many attempts of many societies and peoples to explain both the reasons behind victimization and the appropriate action to be taken as a result of it (Burgess et al., 2013). As a concept, it can be difficult to define victimology, since each individual defines the term differently. According to the text utilized for this class, victimology is defined as being the study of the victim, including the offender and society. It is also seen as being a social-structural way of viewing the relationships between crime and the law as well as the criminal and the victim (Burgess et al, 2013)..

Victimisation is the process of learning the various ways that authority figures determine who is a victim, while also educating the person on how to become the victim. Secondary victimisation, also known as double victimisation refers to the way the state responds to victimisation. The states response has the potential to add further burdens on to the victim. Three main components of the criminal justice system will be focused on in this paper; these are enforcement, adjudication and punishment. This paper will identify why the criminal justice system tend to commit secondary victimisation towards the victims. It will also discuss the pains of victimisation and how secondary victimisation has the ability to amplify these pains. The paper will also identify reforms that have been put in place in order to minimise the occurrence of secondary victimisation.