'Victimless crimes' and health challenges

Victimless crimes are offences in which the parties involved do not consider themselves to be 'victims'. These crimes, also known as consensual crimes, are activities which do not physically harm a person or property, or to which was in fact consented, and is currently illegal if based on statutory laws. Usually, a crime has identifiable victim who suffers as a result of the criminal behaviour. Victimless crimes tend to have no complaining parties other than the law enforcers because the immediate participants in these crimes do not see themselves as victims, have no desire to complain, and would fear criminal liability if they did complain. Moreover, since such acts usually take place in private and do not directly victimise any third party, other citizens are unlikely to observe the acts or to have sufficient incentive to complain. Such crimes are more commonly committed by the youths and so tend to undermine the workforce of a nation.
   The offences included in the victimless crime category are: public drunkenness, sale of illicit drugs, vagrancy, various sexual acts usually involving consenting adults (fornication, adultery, bigamy, incest, sodomy, homosexuality, and prostitution), solitary sex, obscenity, pornography, drug offences, abortion, gambling, and juvenile status offences.
   It has been argued that there is no such thing as a victimless crime, because most so-called victimless crimes have victims, or at least potential victims. Some of the offences on the list of victimless crimes do have direct victims, such as citizens offended or harassed by public drunks or disorderly persons; the spouse of the adulterer, bigamist, or prostitution client; or the spouse, parent, or child of a drug addict. Refusal to recognise the potential forms of victimisation requires problematic distinction, for instance, between mental distress and physical harm. Moreover, in many cases it is quite reasonable to argue that one or more of the participants in a victimless crime is, or will in the future become a victim of serious harm, such as the sporadic heroin user who becomes addicted, or the young person who becomes a prostitute.
   In both developed and developing countries, victimless crimes are going on in different forms in different sections of the society. These crimes are not only within the purview of the criminologists or sociologists, but also of health workers. As these crimes lead to health hazards that are preventable and manageable if detected and appropriate action taken on time. These crimes need to be reduced, as these are the challenges to public health. To overcome the challenges, further medicalisation of 'victimless crimes' by different government and non-government bodies need to be considered. This medicalisation has to be country specific taking into consideration the global scenario. It is strongly believed that many diseases can be controlled if such crimes are minimised. Social scientists need to collaborate with health workers in conducting further evidence-based research, and social work on victimless crime to minimize public health problems.