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Introduction
A victimless crime is any activity that is illegal but does not involve physical harm or threatening of the right of another person and does not involve the destruction of property. It involves a situation whereby a person will act alone as well as a consensual act between two parties- there is usually no victim because the illegal activity is consensual -in which two or more people agree to commit a criminal offense without involving a third party, and as a result of that criminal offense there is no apparent victim or pain/injury. Examples of criminal activities which involve victimless crimes are prostitution and drug usage. Prostitution is regarded as a crime in many countries and this involves the act of offering sexual favors in exchange for money and this will involve both men and women. When two parties agree to commit prostitution consensually, neither party can be considered a victim. Another victimless crime is the usage or possession of illegal substances, it is known that a person who is under the influence of drugs can be involved in the destruction of properties, at the same time the person using drugs can damage his/her body through routine use and in this case the user or the possessor of drugs is the victim. The laws which have been written to take possession of drug or its use is a crime have been largely been written and enforced by non-users, and in this case, the general public is arguable the victimless criminal (Schur 2006).
Substance Abuse
Drugs and alcohol abuse is rampant in the United State, there is the need to focus on a special group of people in which the use of illegal drugs magnifies other problems that affect the country in general. African-Americans have been associated with negative social and health consequences which are associated with the possession of illegal drugs and their use. When we compare African-America and whites in the United State, there is a trend in most African-Americans communities whereby there is an early onset of alcoholism and problems which are related to illegal drug use. The victims of substance abuse have a greater likelihood of being channeled to criminal activities rather than seek treatment for their problems which has been caused by illegal drug uses (Karnezis 2005).
The Bureau of statistics in the united state has shown that a higher percentage of African-Americans 40 percent- compare to whites-14 percent- live in poverty and these statistics are found in the rural United States and if a family is headed by a single mother the rural poverty rate increases to 60 percent. In general, in the United State, the rate for the use of illicit substances, for example, nicotine is highest among American Indians and Hispanics but drug use was lowest among African Americans and Asian Americans.
In Canada, scientific findings done over two decades have shown that the use of illegal substances is one of the major factors that has contributed to the increase in criminal activities in that country. The victims who are addicted to expensive drugs like cocaine and heroin, these drug addicts will commit crimes for him/them to be able to afford this type of drug. The average age of victims in Canada who inject themselves with drugs is between 26 to 35 years but several teenagers below the age of 20 years inject themselves and this represents one in every five victims who use the illegal substance. There was a trend in those Canadians who inject themselves their level of education was low as you compare them to those Canadians who do not use drugs.
Children younger than 18 years of age are involved in prostitution in the United State and are invariably victims of sexual exploitation in that country. When we compare them to an adult they are more vulnerable in the sex sector, and they are victims of debt bondage, trafficking from other improvised countries which are found in the Asia continent. Commercial sexual exploitation in children is a form of violence against children and this has life-threatening consequences on those children who are being sexually exploited. Majority of women and girls in the United State are accorded relatively low social status and this together with poverty makes this girl an easy target for sexual exploitation (Brinkerhoff 2007).
Decriminalization of Prostitution
The question is, should we legalize prostitution or not, there is no question about prostitution being morally wrong on the spiritual books i.e. the Bible for Christians and the Quran for Muslims (Brinkerhoff 2007). In any country in the world, legislation is passed for many reasons, but its primary purpose is to protect the people in that country. Prostitution Research researched prostitution and their finding was that 92 percent of the women who are involved in prostitution wanted to leave prostitution. But they could not because they lack basic human needs like healthcare and food. The average age of girls who enter into prostitution is 14 years, nearly 60 percent of prostitutes are being raped during prostitution, and 60 percent of the girls who enter into prostitution have been forced against their own will, while others have been forced due to economic hardship. The person who is being harmed the most is the persons wife who buys sex and we can say he is the primary criminal because he is the one who is doing the most damage to society. Preponderance issues which are associated with prostitution are many, issues like rape, drug abuse, adultery, murder, divorce, etc due to these issues we need to legalize prostitution to prevent them from occurring (Brinkerhoff 2007).
In another study conducted in San Francisco, it is believed that 62 percent of women working in massage parlors had been physically harmed at one time, and this was only half of the parlors that offer massage services, because those massage parlors which were controlled by pimps or sex traffickers, their percentage are higher for women to be victimized while in their line of work. When a country doesnt decriminalize prostitution, it will increase the danger the women are undergoing while prostituting. There is evidence in any part of the world where prostitution has not been legalized; it has been a magnet for traffickers and the johns. Making prostitution to be a criminal offense will be a legal welcome to traffickers and prostitution will increase dramatically become another purchase of a commodity, like bread. For example in New Zealand, it was noted an increase in organized crime in just a little over a year since prostitution was a criminal offense.
It is not the prostitute in the United State who is wholly responsible for the transmission of Sexual Transmitted Diseases (STDs). A study was conducted in 2008 by The Center for Disease Control and the shocking facts were that prostitutes were responsible for less than 3 percent of all the transmission in that country. The majority of sexually transmitted diseases were contributed by the students in high school and college-going students unless we were talking about the prostitutes who were injecting themselves with drugs-which accounts for about 15 percent of all the working prostitutes operating in the United State. Not forgetting those consenting adults who engage in sex with prostitutes, these people have been practicing safe sex, and using condoms for years has resulted in fewer and fewer cases of Sexually Transmitted Diseases STDs.
In Germany prostitutes are working in certain areas which have been designated by the government and the brothel owners may just be business owners like any other businessmen in Germany. The government takes 50 percent in the form of sin taxes of the profit while owners of brothels and prostitutes share the remaining 50 percent. Every week these brothels are required to undergo health checks and the sex workers in these brothels are forced to undergo forced STI checks every Thursday. After the compulsory testing, the Sex worker is required to display her status on the wall in which he is doing her trade of prostitution. It is a policy in Germany for sex workers to demand the people visiting the prostitute are required to wear a condom, and with all this, we have seen prevailing rate in STDs is low in countries like Germany (Gomme 1998).
Dont Decriminalize Prostitution
It is not possible to protect a prostitute whose source of income exposes her to the likelihood of her being raped at least once in a week this is according to feminist activist based in San Francisco, Melissa Farley in her book Prostitution, Trafficking, and Traumatic Stress, (2004). In her book she quotes a survivor of prostitution, It is simply shameful and not possible to tell in words the intense pain and struggle I have undergone when I was a prostitute, I chose prostitution because I didnt have any other option and it was because of emotional, financial and lack of family support that I engage in prostitution. It is completely erroneous to think there is no violence in the brothels that I had worked in, there was some incident, which customers intentionally remove protective (condoms) against my wishes, I now choose to be an advocate against prostitution because so many innocent lives are being lost due to prostitution . With this in mind, it has been illustrated that those people who are involved in advocating for the legalization of prostitution are a small minority in a country. In an argument about prostitution, a person always refers to exclusively to physical harm: HIV/AIDs, physical assault, killings of prostitution. In her research, Melissa Farley has included women who were willing to assume the role of a prostitute, only to discover later the difficulties these women were undergoing in their trade. What we call it victimless crime, is not the case because there is no choice the way an ordinary person will think, simply there is no genuine consent between the parties, men usually have an upper hand, because the choice prostitute is assumed to be having is not there and prostitute has suffered physical abuse, rape, etc as result of that.
There is no difference between prostitution and rape, or incest, or battering. The difference is that in prostitution there is a money reward and this gain will make sexual exploitation to be invisible in prostitutes. Most of the damages the women who engage in prostitution are undergoing are not physical but it is psychological. Unfortunately, the thing will happen if the country legalizes prostitution rather than decriminalizing it, what will happen is that the country will end up exchanging one exploitive system for an another-one set of bureaucrats in the form of the government bureaucrats (Gomme 1998). The Sex worker is then required to display her grade A Disease-Free Meat certificate on the wall of her working room. It is a policy in Germany for sex workers to demand the people visiting the prostitute are required to wear a condom, and with all this, we have seen prevailing rate in STDs is low in countries like Germany (Gomme 1998).
Yes Decriminalize Drugs
A well-thought-out policy on the use of drugs will lower gun crime, burglaries, and the prison population will decrease by 50 percent. Tax revenues as a result of drug use will increase in Britain, however, politicians in Britain would never dare suggest this to the lawmakers. The prohibition of drugs in Britain has failed in a way that the illegal drug trade is not controlled by the government but its being controlled by the violent criminal gangs. The current policy in Britain is driving more women into prostitution and has left crime for low-income addicts. If currently the use of illegal drugs was legalized the same way tobacco and alcohol are heavily taxed. The money realized from taxing drugs could be channeled into education and rehabilitation programs. With drug traffickers out of the equation, the lawmakers would mean users could purchase from the joints where drugs had not been tainted with other harmful substances (Farley 2007).
In 2001 Portugal abolished all the penalties that are associated with substance abuse, they argued that jail terms to the addict were driving the addict further underground and incarceration was more expensive than treatment of the addicts, nowadays person found possessing small dosage of drugs are sent before a panel which consists of psychologist and legal adviser and appropriate treatment is instituted to the victim of the drug instead of jail term (Farley 2007). When we compare Portugals case with those in other European countries and the United State where the number of drug use is rampant, Portugal has the lowest rate of lifetime drug use in people under the age of 18 years in the United State, the proportion is 12:39.9 percent. The lifetime use of illegal substance use among the 7th to 9th grade fell from 19.1 percent to 10.6 percent, and the lifetime heroin use among the teens fell from 2.5 percent to 1.8 percent (Karnezis 2005). In the United state, they have experienced problems with drugs overflowing from their neighboring country i.e. Mexico. The United state has been a champion of hard-line drug policy, imposing strict penalties on cocaine and marijuana use in the world. While most of the countries in Europe with liberal substance use laws that than the United State has less drug use (Karnezis 2005).
No-to Drug Decriminalize
The chairman of the National Center on Addiction and Substance Abuse Joseph Califono believe decriminalization of illegal substance is not the answer nor is the legislation passed by lawmakers in the United State. The government needs to channel the available resources to combat abuse and addiction among the youth in any country. The problem when a country decriminalizes drugs is that the price for that substance will come down, and it will be easier to buy and more acceptable to use among the vulnerable members of the society i.e. the teens. An example is legislation that is found in Italy, Italy is believed to have one of the highest rates of heroin use in Europe, is because limited amounts of heroin do not bring criminal sanctions in the country. Sweden is another country in Europe to tighten its laws on drugs, substance abuse includes cocaine was rampant in that country in the early 90s. The government decided to tighten drug control and use, set up a national action plan against illegal substance use. In Sweden today the drug use is 70 percent below the average European usage. A county like the United States does not make substance use dangerous because it has been prohibited; rather an illegal drug becomes prohibited because it is harmful to the society, and liberalizing drug laws will increase drug uses in the youth and children (Schur 2006).
Reference List
Brinkerhoff, D.B. (2007).Essentials of Sociology. New York: Cengage Learning Publisher.
Gomme, I.M. (1998). The shadow line: deviance and crime in Canada. Harcourt: Harcourt Brace Canada Publisher.
Farley, M. (2007). Prostitution, trafficking, and traumatic stress. New York: Routledge Publisher.
Karnezis, K.C. (2005). Victimless crimes. Iowa: University of Iowa Institute of Public Affairs Publisher.
Schur, E.M. (2006). Victimless crimes: two sides of a controversy. London: Prentice-Hall Publisher.
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