Victimless Crimes

Victimless crime is defined as illegal behavior in which people willingly engage and in which there are no unwilling victims. Victimless crimes can be viewed as prostitution, illegal drug use, or illegal gambling. These are considered crimes because they can harm your body, or life in some way, and because you willingly do them. There are many other things in our lives that we can do such as smoking cigarettes, or drinking that can harm our lives and body in some way but are legal. In my opinion these things are legal, because of the fight put up for them in the past, and for the economy. Alcohol and cigarettes have taxes on them, so the economy benefits from people buying and using those. Alcohol used to be illegal during the alcohol prohibition, but people continued to drink alcohol illegally, and put up a fight to be able to drink it legally again. I do not believe that there is such a thing as victimless crimes. In the participation in drugs or prostitution, there is damage being done to their bodies. This is making them a victim of their own actions. In doing drugs you are damaging your brain, and depending on the drug, many other parts of your body. By prostituting your body you are putting yourself at risk for not only abuse, but for sexually transmitted diseases. In illegal gambling you are not only putting yourself at risk, but your family. You would be throwing away money that your family could need; you could be putting your family and yourself at risk of losing your house, car, and even job. You could be putting yourself at risk by getting mixed in the wrong crowd, all so you can make a few extra bucks, and could end up getting hurt or killed by the actions you choose to do. I don’t think that the legal system should be responsible to protect people from themselves, but sometimes people need reinforcements in protecting themselves. Sometimes people don’t see how they are harming themselves until they have gotten arrested or fined for them. After