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Comment by dragonwriter | Hacker News Reader

So-called "victimless crimes" are crimes where the harm perceived is a diffuse harm rather than a focused harm on a particular individual.

There's really no reason why diffuse harms should not be criminal while focused ones should (arguably, diffuse harms are less able to be addressed by individual action through the civil justice system, so outside of focused harms where the victim is unable to pursue action after the crime, like murder, diffuse harms are the most important for government to address directly.)

OTOH, there's often a lot more disagreement over whether what some people perceive as a diffuse harm actually is a harm.

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I've never seen "victimless crime" defined as diffuse versus focused harm, and I would strongly disagree with describing it as such.

For example, dumping mercury into a major river causes extremely diffuse harm, but I'd never describe it as a "victimless crime."

In the other direction, smoking weed in private harms nobody except the smoker. The harm is so focused it doesn't even touch anyone besides the offender. Yet this is almost the canonical example of "victimless crime."

It's not about diffuse harm, it's about whether anyone was harmed at all besides the accused.

> In the other direction, smoking weed in private harms nobody except the smoker.

This is precisely the point that is contention. The entire argument for prohibiting marijuana is that this is, in fact, not the case, and that, through a number of indirect channels, people "smoking weed in private" harms others throughout society in a variety of ways.

Obviously, as I said, there is considerable disagreement about whether this is, in fact, the case, (and, also, as to whether, even if it is, prohibition mitigates or exacerbates these harms, and as to whether, in any case, prohibition is an ethically-acceptable response even if the harms exist and prohibition mitigates them.)

But it certainly is not the case that those who support prohibition generally agree that the crimes are "victimless" that those opposed to prohibition describe that way.

I still don't see any connection.

Lots of what I would call "victimless crimes" are outlawed because of what the proponents of criminalization see as focused harm. Prostitution, for example, is seen as either harming the prostitute, or harming the patron's family. For drugs, it's often considered that the harm is focused on the user, not diffuse.

And again, lots of crimes with diffuse harm are generally agreed on to not fall into the "victimless" category, like dumping toxic materials.

The theory goes that the drugs impact the user and since the user becomes a brain damaged criminal afterwards, society will eventually need to deal with the user's shit.

There is some truth to this for some drugs, but not even close to most.

Sure, some people hold to that diffuse harm theory. Others hold to a theory of specific harm. Others hold to a theory of no harm.

My point is just that there is no connection, as far as I can see, between crimes which some people as presenting diffuse harm, and crimes which other people see as being victimless. All combinations are not only present but common.

Funny thing about prostitution is if you tape it and put it online it suddenly becomes legal porn.

Maybe second-order effects is a better way to describe it than 'diffuse'. Take the following:

>In the other direction, smoking weed in private harms nobody except the smoker. The harm is so focused it doesn't even touch anyone besides the offender. Yet this is almost the canonical example of "victimless crime."

It's true that this doesn't directly harm anyone. However, if the smoker is doing this 'illegally' (without a medical license, not in WA or CO, etc) and didn't grow it, he/she is participating in and supporting an illegal drug market via increased demand. If the smoker weren't participating, it would reduce the demand that drives smugglers and the horrific things in Mexico.

As far as I understand this comment, you're saying that smoking weed causes harm because it's illegal, and it's illegal because it causes harm. That's a bit... odd.

I think the "diffuse harm" in the case of smoking weed in private is not talking about the act of smoking and who is or is not affected by the chemicals involved, etc.

It is rather looking at the overall picture of "What are the consequences of allowing weed to be bought/sold/grown. Is there harm in it?" The whole infrastructure, not just the end user.

Sure, some people look at it that way, some people look at it other ways. I just see no link between people thinking that a crime causes diffuse harm, and people thinking that a crime is victimless.

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