Laws are there for a reason, and it’s likely safe to assume that without them, chaos would ensue. However, while some rules are there to stop crime and wrongdoing against people, others seem to regulate situations where no one’s actually a victim.
The ‘Ask Reddit’ community members recently discussed what is or feels like a victimless crime. They shared their thoughts after the user u/secondfiddle00 started the thread, which covered everything from dumpster diving to collecting rainwater. Scroll down to find more of redditors' answers on the list below.
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As an ER nurse, I give a lot of s**t away to patients against the rules or advise them where they can get it cheaper. Big hospitals have more money than God, but want me to send you home with 1or2 wound supplies for a wound that will take 4 weeks to heal. F**k that. Here's a box of 50 for your purse. I never gave that to you. Hey, you need crutches, and here they are, but first. Before you sign that you got these. These crutches are $1000. The same or better are on Amazon for $50 or less. I'm not telling you how to live your life, but I can offer you a free wheelchair ride out to your sons car...
You could argue that the hospital is the victim here. I'm telling you that the hospital gets a discount on supplies and marks them up 1000% to sell to those going through an emergency. Who's really the victim?
Edit:
Appreciate all the support! Don't take this the wrong way, but I hope I never have the pleasure of taking care of any of you. Stay healthy people and keep living your life to the best you can.
To those saying I could get fired for this. I appreciate the concern. I can almost guarantee I will one day be fired for this. It's worth it to me. I will get another job in a different ER and continue my work.
Regarding the people saying I'm contributing to the problem. The problem is in the USA Healthcare model. Everything from insurance to CEOs. If my treatment and proper care of the individual is contributing to the problem, frankly, I don't think I care tbh. I will continue.
Lastly. Various arguments have been made to if this is a victimless crime or not. I don't disagree with some, but it's the closest thing I have to answer the question. Apologies if it doesn't 100% fit.
Stay beautiful people
I am starting to get at feeling this list should be marked "illegal in the US".
Assisted s*****e. As long as it’s humane, the person is of right mind and age, and there is sufficient cause for such a procedure. Death with dignity has been withheld for too long as a civil society.
Totally agree it should be legalised (under strict controls, obviously). Refusing a humane end to a suffering animal is rightly considered cruelty, so why do humans not get that same mercy when they need it?
Anything related to food stamps. I’m sorry but food insecurity is not ok for anyone to go through. I don’t care about fudging the numbers to get food assistance. I don’t care about people who sell their food stamps (I know, it’s cards now, but you know what I mean). If you’re desperate enough to use fraud to get food or you’re selling your free food access to someone else who needs it because you need the money for bills, I’m ok with it.
My food stamps were cut in half in March. Now I get $126 for the entire month. My SSI is $1200. Like many other people in this country, I can only afford one meal a day. Rather ironic, as I'm morbidly obese.
Feeding the homeless in Texas. No victims but it is a crime.
Sleeping in your car when you are too drunk and can't drive.
I see Jaywalking on this quite a but but I will say when I lived overseas, jaywalking even at 2 am on an empty street just didn't happen. When I asked a local (German) why he wouldn't cross against a no walking sign he said "what if a kid looked out the window and saw me, i don't want to set a bad example"
Clicking "I am 18 years old" on an adult website when you're 17
Downloading very old games that are no longer available for sale.
Picking up a bird feather found on the ground and keeping it. It's technically against the migratory bird laws.
Entire species were hunted to extinction (Arabian Ostrich) or near extinction (bald eagle) for their feathers. They had to make possession illegal because its way too easy to shoot a bird 1/2 mile from the nearest road and then claim you found the feathers on the ground.
Setting up a lemonade stand without a vendor license
"Is your lemonade made out of actual lemonade?" - "Are your scout cookies made out of actual scouts?"
Prostitution. Ain't nobody's business if two more more consenting adults conduct a financial deal that involves bodily fluids.
That's not to say that cheating, withholding health problems, and sex trafficking aren't victimless, but those aren't just merely prostitution.
Hanging a clothesline, collecting rainwater, or planting a garden in your yard. Some places ban you from doing these things
Eating food out of someones garbage.
The crime here is that there was food thrown out that could have been passed on to someone who needs it.
Being gay in a homophobic country
Worth noting that being gay in ‘most’ countries was still illegal well into the 1900’s, from memory I think it was decriminalised as late as 1996 in Germany. So to my mind we shouldn’t be pointing fingers at developing countries for their ideas, religions and beliefs because we are only talking between what 25-75 years ago when ‘we’ held similar ideas.
Wearing a dress as a man in Tennessee.
It's clothing. It's there to keep you covered and protect you from the elements. What shape it comes in should be completely up to the wearer.
I can take a seed at home, put rain water on it and expose it to sunlight, dry the flowers, bake them into a cake and make some THC edibles, and it doesn't even harm the air quality due to smoking. That's a crime. No money goes to criminal gangs, and I would risk losing my job and going to prison.
Or I can manufacture alcohol and sell it legally, knowing that it causes people health issues, and that others cause crimes when drunk and disorderly, and that's absolutely fine and not a crime.
Weird.
Selling alcohol on Sunday. It's still illegal in some States.
Being an atheist in many many countries
If being in a religion is okay, then not being in one should be too. Forcing people into a religion tends to have the opposite effect…
TONS of blue laws.
basically antiquated laws on the books that have to do with religion (mostly on sundays). In my state you can't buy alcohol on sunday before noon. And car dealers are not allowed to be open on sunday. Basically they are designed to not compete with church attending times like early morning.
We have a certain religion here where I live that don't work on Sunday's. But of course they will go to church then go out for brunch afterward and make other people work even though they HIGHLY judge people who work on Sunday. I work in Healthcare there are no days off. My friends say "I better not treat them if they come in on Sunday lest I will be judged." Of course she was being sarcastic.
When cops pretend to be kids and get people for solicitation to a minor. When I worked at the district attorneys office we LOVED these. The shock on these men’s face when the “14 year old girl” they spoke to was our 6’5”, 300 pound 50 year old detective was just….amazing.
Speeding If traffic is all going above the speed limit. the safest speed is not the speed limit. The safest speed is the speed at which traffic is moving. speeding doesn't inherently cause accidents. differential in speed causes accidents.
Loitering. It's basically just existing somewhere.
Businesses are harmed if your "existing" as you call it makes their location less desirable to shop or do business in. A lot of these "victimless" crimes sound like they were written by people who never considered the other person's point of view.
Collecting rain water (a crime in a lot of cities here in the US).
this makes absolutely no sense do the US goverment think they own the weather or something
Downloading games for obsolete consoles from companies which are now non-existent.
Keeping a seed from a plant you bought at a massive nursery and replanting it
Prostitution: In places where it's illegal, consenting adults engaging in sex for money can be considered a victimless crime.
That assumes both people are doing it of their own free will. Unfortunately sex trafficking is a huge problem, and it's hard to know if someone is secretly being coerced.
Handing out water to people in queues for the polling station.
Many things if they're simply not witnessed. Taking off your pants in the park at night is absolutely a crime (actually two separate crimes!), but if nobody is there to see it, no harm has been done, and there is nobody to be bothered that you trespassed after sundown.
There's a small town in Colorado where a guy would run naked every night for over 10 years and no one knew the difference. Then one day he ran into a class of 5th graders laying on the ground in park waiting for the meteor shower to start. Keep your pants on in public places because you never know when or who you'll run into unexpectedly.
Two adults mutually agreeing to fight
Eating a magic mushroom you found in nature.
Assuming you take care of them well and have the space for it, keeping farm animals in a residential neighborhood.
Not illegal everywhere, but it certainly is in my city! TLDR: I can’t get a goat.
I love animals, but no, this isn't victimless. It's cruel to keep a goat in an apartment. It's cruel to keep a horse in a backyard barely big enough for it to move around. If it's cruel for farms to keep pigs in tiny pens, then it's cruel for you to do it, too. Just because a living, thinking, feeling creature isn't a human doesn't mean it's okay to make it suffer so that you can look "cool" for pretending a goat is basically a dog.
Making the shed in the backyard 110 sqft instead of 100 without a permit 😱
Any building work in Australia without a permit, even if it's only an extension on the garage.
Loitering in a ghost town
In my home town it was illegal to own more than three cats or dogs per household and all can say about that it’s a stupid law for a stupid town. The local government said it was because the town is crucial for railroads and the coal industry which is true but that has jack s**t to do with how many pets can be owned.
Again, animals can be victims, so no, this isn't victimless. Running a puppy or kitten mill is not victimless. Hoarding animals is not victimless. When the city finally came to my neighbor's, they removed NINETY-SEVEN cats. Ninety. Seven. A couple weeks later, two were made available for adoption. The others had feline lymphoma and had to be put down. They had already infected most of the other cats in the neighborhood -- my sister's cat was only 3. In less than four months, he went from an amazing, healthy, 16-pound cat to a lethargic, 9-pound skeleton. He died two days before his vet appointment. Hoarding animals is the opposite of victimless.
Fudging your sales price on used automobile sales.
The government has already received sales tax when the car was sold brand new. They're just double dipping when it gets sold as a used car
By that logic, no one should have to pay income tax, because the government already got their cut when your employer earned the money being used to pay you....and that would continue on and on up the line until you got to a handful of people leaving the amount of tax collected at an insufficient amount to adequately provide services to the population. Just like now.
Your passenger drinking a beer while you're driving.
The passenger is also not allowed to be drunk, this actually makes sense, to not destract the driver.
Picking up a penny on the sidewalk... believe it or not it's a crime.
Got this straight from "Office Space" movie.
Put a tenth of a penny out of all bank transactions into your bank account. Repeatedly.
Theoretically:
The tenth of a penny when withdrawn should round down to $0.00 for each one.
The sheer number of transactions added to the target account simultaneously should register a non zero number when added to it.
Nobody loses money, you gain money.
It's not "theoretical" you're either charging someone more, or giving someone less. Doing it to a single person, they're not going to notice, pulling that s**t on a corporation, even split across hundreds of thousands of transactions, they're going to notice. My uncle got one of his daughters friends a job at Compaq....i'm not sure if it was before or after Office space came out, but the dumbass pulled the same s**t as in the movie, stole something like $400,000 over the course of a few months, and was immediately discovered at the end of the fiscal quarter. Companies, exist to make money. They keep track of it rather well.
Owning a sword
you can own privately a miliary tank without a license in Australia as long as the gun doesnt work. im planning to buy a tank. also one of my friends has a sword
I don't think anyone has mentioned eating the wrong food. Non-halal food, non-kosher food in some countries. In aboriginal law in Australia, victimless crimes like eating food for the wrong totem, having sex with your betrothed before marriage, and looking at your mother-in-law, are punishable by death or exile, ditto giving birth to a deformed child.
Giving birth to a deformed child? Wtf? That's entirely out of the parents' control :0
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If you are homeless and live in your car, DON'T PARK AT TARGET! The cops will be surrounding you within the hour. The security scours the parking lot. Doesn't Matter if you are in the far corner away from everyone, just don't sit there.
in my country it is a crime to lose your identification papers. you get a fine. it's also illegal to not have identification on person in public, but it's rarely enforced.
So sad that these were ever put on the books somewhere; worse because they are STILL there. Repeal, change!
It used to be illegal to record music from one audio source to another or copy sheet music without paying loyalties. I don't remember anyone being arrested for it and I assume it is still in force.
some of these are completely horrible, some obvious, and im pretty sure some have some stories added to it. You're not allowed to jaywalk, cars present or not.
Reminds me again why I should be grateful to not live in that country.
I don't think anyone has mentioned eating the wrong food. Non-halal food, non-kosher food in some countries. In aboriginal law in Australia, victimless crimes like eating food for the wrong totem, having sex with your betrothed before marriage, and looking at your mother-in-law, are punishable by death or exile, ditto giving birth to a deformed child.
Giving birth to a deformed child? Wtf? That's entirely out of the parents' control :0
Load More Replies... If you are homeless and live in your car, DON'T PARK AT TARGET! The cops will be surrounding you within the hour. The security scours the parking lot. Doesn't Matter if you are in the far corner away from everyone, just don't sit there.
in my country it is a crime to lose your identification papers. you get a fine. it's also illegal to not have identification on person in public, but it's rarely enforced.
So sad that these were ever put on the books somewhere; worse because they are STILL there. Repeal, change!
It used to be illegal to record music from one audio source to another or copy sheet music without paying loyalties. I don't remember anyone being arrested for it and I assume it is still in force.
some of these are completely horrible, some obvious, and im pretty sure some have some stories added to it. You're not allowed to jaywalk, cars present or not.
Reminds me again why I should be grateful to not live in that country.
