1.5.12.5 Victimless Crimes and Core Values

Version 1.0 October 2022                             (Previous Version)

A primary principle of the justice system is, or should be, first do no harm.  This is consistent with our core value of Love, minimizing suffering and harm and maximizing happiness or wellbeing.

Do no harm is part of the Ancient Greek Hippocratic Oath followed by doctors.  It underlies legal principles like habeas corpus, innocent until proven guilty and beyond reasonable doubt. 

So the justice system should only criminalize and punish behaviour if there is a good reason to do so.

This subsection covers victimless crimes, in which there is a perpetrator but no net harm to anyone else.  These include recreational drug use (such as alcohol, marijuana or ecstasy); gambling, bad language (swearing, lese-majesty and blasphemy); apostasy; gambling; and various sexual behaviours (such as pornography, incest, group sex and homosexual sex).  We shouldn’t harm people doing no harm.  We need to be careful with activities that can become addictive, then become harmful.

We emphasize that we can't and don't support any activity that involves causing harm or suffering. 

●   Society is correct to ban and suppress drug use that hurts the user and sometimes leads them to do harm, such as opioids – heroin, ice (crystal meth) and other amphetamines, etc. 

●   Society is correct to put controls on usage where the drug itself is legal, such as alcohol and nicotine (tobacco), including limitations on purchase, places where it can be used, restrictions on driving and operating machinery, bans in the workplace and schools, and so on, according to what is effective, with the ultimate goal to reduce alcohol, and eliminate nicotine, consumption.

●   It is reasonable for society to ban language that vilifies others or is likely to incite violence, or hatred towards minorities or other common targets such as women and the mentally ill.

●   Society must vigorously suppress child pornography and any other pornography that involves causing harm in its production, including violence or threats, and controlling behaviour; or portrays or promotes violence, rape, demeaning or controlling behaviour.

●   Society must actively prevent incest as well as non-incestuous behaviour involving any form of abuse of children, which is essentially rape of a minor, and any intercourse involving an unequal relationship, between siblings or intergenerational, where consent is not clearly and freely given.

●   Society must suppress any form of coercion, harassment or sexual abuse where consent is not clearly and freely given, regardless of who, what or how many are involved.

Some countries impose sometimes very severe penalties for alcohol, marijuana or ecstasy use; insulting the monarch or ruler, changing religion or professing Atheism, speaking out against God or an historical religious figure (such as Jesus or Mohammed), watching harmless pornography, sex outside marriage, and homosexual sex.  The penalty sometimes is death, often involves imprisonment, and sometimes whipping or caning.  Examples of these abound.

●   In India, consumption of alcohol is prohibited in the states of Bihar, Gujarat, Nagaland Mizoram and some other places.  In many Muslim countries the penalty for drinking alcohol is imprisonment and flogging (though some have exemptions for non-Muslims).

●   Thailand has lese-majesty laws, and imprisons people who criticize or say ‘bad’ things about the king.  Normal political discussion on whether the monarchy should exist is effectively banned.

●   Turkey has had a law against insulting the President since 1926, but in 2005 it was revised to increase the penalty to up to 6 years jail for a public insult.  Since Recep Tayyip Erdogan became president in 2014 there have been over 160,000 investigations, over 35,000 cases filed, and over 12,000 convictions.  It is justified by claiming that the President represents the country – implying that one must not insult the country – and claiming the criticism is still allowed, but not insults.  In practice the most minor criticism is treated as an insult, and the law is used to suppress dissent and opposition to the ruling party.  (It is labelled by some a Strategic Lawsuit Against Public Participation or SLAPP.)  Some people are arrested at 2:00 am, like dangerous criminals, to increase the fear of criticizing the government.  Leading journalists, 16 year old high school students, and women at an International Women’s Day march have been arrested. 

●   In 2005, a court in Qassim province, north of Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, found a high school chemistry teacher guilty of blasphemy for talking to students and teachers about Christianity, Judaism, and the causes of terrorism, and sentenced him to 40 months in prison and 750 lashes.  (https://www.hrw.org/news/2005/11/16/saudi-arabia-teachers-silenced-blasphemy-charges )

●   A 2009 Amnesty International report found that Saudi Arabia executed many people for non-violent offences, including drug offences, 'sodomy', blasphemy and apostasy. ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blasphemy_law_in_Saudi_Arabia )

By definition, the supposed crimes we are discussing do not involve harm or suffering for any of the people involved.  How each behaviour must be restrained to be harmless is covered in the following subsections.

If we find an example where harm or suffering is caused that is significant enough to outweigh any happiness or well-being that may result, taking all affected people’s interests into account, then we should change our response, according to the evidence, to minimize that behaviour, which may include treating it as a social misdemeanor that the community should discourage at the local level, or as a ‘crime’ to be addressed by government agencies.

Penalties such as death, imprisonment, floggings, and so on are sufficiently harmful that they must be clearly justified and balanced against the harms that would occur if the penalties weren’t so harsh.

Actions that do no harm should not be treated as crimes, including pornography, sexual acts, drug taking, language use and gambling.