Legal Dictionary of Pakistan

victimless crime

A crime that is considered to have no direct victim, usu. because only consenting adults are involved. ( Examples are possession of drugs, deviant sexual intercourse between consenting adults, and prostitution. - Also termed consensual crime; crime without victims "When a man's house has been robbed or lus brother murdered, he is likely to take this complaint vigorously to the police and demand action. his presence on the scene dramatizes the need for law enforcement and gives sense and purpose to the work of the police and district attorney. In contrast, the absence of a prosecuting witness surrounds crimes without victims' with an entirelv different atmosphere. Here it is the police who must assume the initiative. If they attempt to work without the aid of informers. they must resort to spying, and this spying is rendered all the more distasteful because what is spied upon is sordid and pitiable." Lon L. Fuller, Anatomy of the Law 44 (1968).