Law for Living

A Crime

Must Have

a Victim

By Howard L. Oleck

Distinguished Professor of Law Cleveland State University

"Victimless crimes" are crimes that injure only the people who commit them who usually do not think of themselves as "victims” of their own acts. Some say that these crimes should be deemed to be injuries to society, and therefore should be forbidden by law. Examples are such crimes as gambling, prostitution, drug use, homosexual acts, adultery or fornication, and the giving of pornographic materials to adults. These all are illegal in most of the states of the United States.

LATELY there has been a growing tendency to repeal or greatly limit these laws. The modern view is that it is nobody's business but his own if a grown man chooses to indulge in these "crimes", and harms nobody in so doing. Ohio's legislature began serious consideration, in early 1972, of a bill to repeal the criminal statutes dealing with homosexual acts, fornication, and some other "victimless crimes" between consenting adults. Actually, most public prosecutors and police officers usually do not prosecute people who commit most of these crimes. If these laws were strictly enforced we would need many more jails than we have now. Most police and prosecutors use common sense discretion, and try to concentrate on crimes that are more dangerous and harmful to society.

Friendly local poker games among neighbors, for small amounts of money, are criminal gambling law violations. Everyone knows of such weekly poker parties. for example, and would think the police to be crazy if they raided such games. Torrid love affairs that wind up in hot-bed motels must be as numerous as the leaves of grass, and may be illegal, but police rarely prosecute the lovers. YET, prostitution is a social menance in some ways, and so is gambling, etc. Aside from the health dangers, the "fun crimes" attract a vicious following of thugs and exploiters who add serious-harm crimes to the lesser ones. And the erosion of public morality can be disastrous in the long run, as history has shown again and again. Police mostly can be depended to clamp down on the professional promoters of such crimes as drug and

pushing, gambling prostitution. It probably is good sense to repeal laws that govern acts that involve only "purely moral" offenses that harm nobody except perhaps the actors.

The police and courts have more than enough to do to try to deal with the crimes that harm actuai victims.