What is "victimless crime"

n. An act or behavior which is prohibited by law, yet which neither directly harms nor violates the rights of any specific person, although some people may claim it harms society as a whole. This concept typically applies to adults.

n. an act that is legally a crime but that seem to have no victims; "he considers prostitution to be a victimless crime"

A victimless crime is a term used to refer to actions that have been made illegal but which do not directly violate or threaten the rights of any other individual. It often involves consensual acts, or solitary acts in which no other person is involved. Such acts would not lead to any person calling for help from the police. For example, in the United Kingdom, current victimless crimes include gambling and recreational drug use. Some also include prostitution. However, this is controversial. Edwin Schur and Hugo Bedau state in their book Victimless Crimes: Two Sides of a Controversy that "some of these laws produce secondary crime, and all create new 'criminals' many of whom are otherwise law-abiding citizens and people in authority."

For example, in politics, a lobbyist or an activist might use this phrase with the implication that the law in question should be abolished.

Victimless crimes are, in the harm principle of John Stuart Mill, "victimless" from a position that considers the individual as the sole sovereign, to the exclusion of more abstract bodies such as a community or a state against which criminal offenses may be directed.