Victimless Crimes. How the State Creates Criminals.
"If the state is the only victim, then there is no crime."
The term victimless crime is thrown around quite a bit in today's current affairs. A rough definition would be a crime in which no person(s) is affected by the "illegal" act. A great example of this would be driving without insurance.
You get pulled over for lets say speeding. It was only a few miles per hour over, so the officer is going to give you a warning, but you hear the dreaded question. "Do you have insurance?" For this example you do not, and now you are getting a ticket and facing a license suspension and jail time.
You haven't hurt anyone or damaged any property, yet you are being faced with a loss of freedom for an arbitrary infraction. You are now the victim of the state, who is prosecuting you for a victimless crime.
The majority of people arrested are due to these victimless crimes. Drug possession, driving infractions, licensing issues, and a slew of other misdemeanor and even felony charges are for crimes where the only victim was an article or sub section of legal code.
The sheer amount of money it costs to house these non violent offenders should be enough for people to reassess the US legal and prison systems. It costs on average $29,000 per year per inmate we house in this country. Roughly 63% of incarcerated peoples are in jail for nonviolent crimes, many of which would fit this label of a victimless crime.
The trauma that jail and prison inflicts is undeniable, and locking up people who "did no harm" only destroys their life, it does not rehabilitate them. The CDC has linked incarceration and its trauma to TBI's (traumatic brain injuries) in the present and formerly incarcerated individuals.
We as a county are doing our citizens a major disservice by creating criminals, versus building up people, and addressing addiction and mental health.
Many people are hurt and broken. Incarcerating a broken individual only breaks them more. Leave jails and prisons for murderers, rapists and other violent criminals.
(Article by Jaimes Campbell)