how can there be a crime when there is no victim?

Question

if there is no victim there is no crime.
why do our government agencies
persecute us for victimless crimes?
how is posession of an unregistered firearm
a crime when there is no victim?
the justice system in this country needs
to be renamed the revenue system!

Answer 1

there cant be. someone told me that you not wearing you seat belt is a crime because if you got in wreck and flew through your window you could kill someone. Now tell me something, what are the fu cking odds that you are going to land on someone when you fly through your windshield? not very high. and i dont think you should get in trouble for having and unregistered firearm, what if it was your grandpas from when he was a kid or something? this place is gay

Answer 2

The legal answer, whether you agree or not, is that the state can claim it is the victim. In Georgia when we have a "victimless crime" as you describe, we simply list the victim as the State of Georgia because it's the state's laws that were violated.

By your logic, I could go around forging checks and as long as the name were completely fictitious it shouldn't be a crime? I realize that's a bit simplistic, because ultimately the bank absorbs the loss and passes it along to all the banking customers through fees and interest rates...so I guess there would actually be thousands of victims in that case??? That would be pretty rotten for someone to forge one check and end up getting charged with something like 50,000 counts of forgery just because they had some checks printed with a made up name.

The current system isn't perfect, but it works about as well as any system before it and better than many others.

Answer 3

We live in a society that is filled with laws...local laws, state and even federal laws.
In my community, our city even has laws that dictate how tall my fence can be. As an American, I can choose to follow the laws or not. Also spelled out in these laws are the punishments, imposed by government, for those that choose to ignore them. Now the height of my fence surely doesn't pose a threat to the life of another person, but if I choose to put in a12 ft fence (6 ft is the limit), then I know that I am breaking that particular law. Is there a victim? No, but I still am liable for my choice.

Crimes don't have to have victims. A crime is just what happens when someone breaks a law.

Answer 4

A crime is a violation of law. PERIOD! I do agree that allot of laws seen to be only for generation of revenue. Being a Truck driver I can get a hefty fine for being in the wrong lane or not having my log book filled out correctly. No victims in either case, but still against the law and hence a "crime".

Answer 5

This is a free country, and the voters have freely elected leaders who make things illegal for us, so this free country now has 2.5 million of its citizens locked up. Thats more than Communist China, with 3x the population! And about half of them are there on victimless (ie, simple drug possession and or sale) charges. People like living in an authoritarian state. They hate all freedom, except their own. No politician with a brain would ever try to dismantle or reform this system, he or she would be labeled "soft on crime" and never win. So I don't see it going anywhere except getting worse. What a pathetic thing to do with freedom--create a totalitarian police state!

Answer 6

If we only prosecuted crimes that have victims that you can see and hear, then we would lose lots of important laws. Just because you can't visually see a victim in a situation, doesn't mean that there is not the possibility of a victim.

In your situation, it is just a safeguard. What if someone was killed with your gun? There needs to be records on firearms.

Answer 7

The state can be a victim. For example if you get caught defacing a state building then the state would be listed as the victim. There does not have to be a living victim, it can be a municipality, state, city, etc.....

Answer 8

i agree with you 100% and there's not a crime as far as i am concerned without a victim

I believe in the right to bear arms reguardless of the law. the criminals are going to get them anyway

Answer 9

The victim of that crime you described would be the State and/or jurisdiction in which the offense occurred.

Answer 10

They are staturtory crimes, crimes merley because they break a law.

Speeding is another example, illegal immigration another, drivers licence, boat permit, car tag,

many laws are done ( for no reason except they can) but others are done for a precived good of society, so society is considered teh victim.

( I agree with you, only explaining it)