Casual or Casualty?: Victimless Crime's Socio-Economic Impact in Indian Context

Abstract

The ultimate goal of society is to maintain social order. This can be attained by restricting the menace of crime. Within crime, there is a category of 'victimless crime' – which may sound oxymoronic. The victimless crimes cover those crimes where victims are not identifiable, or the illegal activity that occurs with the parties' consent. For decades there has been debate on whether victimless activity should be criminalized or not. The argument by the modernized world is in favor of decriminalization due to the lack of harm to others and freedom of the individual. This chapter hypothesizes that 'victimless crimes have victims – society as a whole, hence the term victimless is a façade. The chapter will attempt to establish the correlation between Mill's Harm Principle viz-a-viz modern victimless crimes. Thereafter, the chapter will discuss the various victimless crimes prevalent in India & their impact on the subcontinent. Lastly, the chapter will summarize the arguments with concluding remarks on the criminological aspect of victimless crimes.