Victimless Crimes: Shifting Views and Demographic Indicators Público

Abstract

In this honors thesis I examine how views towards victimless crimes have changed. In particular, I focus on marijuana use and prostitution. Drawing upon previous literature, I explain the origins of the concept of victimless crimes and philosophical ideas used to justify criminalization. I also rely on prior research to identify potential demographic indicators of views toward victimless crimes. I use two representative datasets, the General Social Survey and the American subsample of the World Values Survey to quantify and evaluate relationships between demographic variables and their effect on attitudes toward marijuana use and prostitution. I use a bivariate crosstabulation to explore the relationships between the demographic variables and the respondents' views toward marijuana use and prostitution. I focus on the differences in approval for the following demographic indicators: sex, age, marital status, household income, education, social class, religiosity, and region. Consistent with previous research, I found that respondents who are male, younger than 60, never married, highly educated, of the upper class, non-religious, and in the West were the most approving of marijuana use. Results were similar for attitudes toward prostitution with the exception of marital status, in which separated individuals, rather than those who are never married, were the most approving. These results coincide with previous research. Potential causes for these differences are discussed.

Table of Contents

Introduction

General Definitions

1

3

Literature Review

Liberty Limiting Principles

Harm

Paternalism

Moralism

Offense

Criticisms of Criminalization

Prostitution

Drugs

Shifting Views of Victimless Crimes

5

5

5

7

8

10

11

11

14

17

Data and Methods

24

Analysis

General Trends

Sex

Age

Marital Status

Family Income

Education

Class Identification

Religiosity

Region

27

27

32

33

34

35

35

36

37

38

Discussion and Conclusion

39

References

41

About this Honors Thesis

Rights statement

• Permission granted by the author to include this thesis or dissertation in this repository. All rights reserved by the author. Please contact the author for information regarding the reproduction and use of this thesis or dissertation.

School	Emory College
Department	Sociology
Degree	BA
Submission	Honors Thesis
Language	English
Research Field	Sociology, Criminology and Penology Sociology, Demography Sociology, Social Structure and Development
Palavra-chave	marijuana prostitution victimless crimes attitudinal trends demographic indicators
Committee Chair / Thesis Advisor	Mullis, Jeff, Emory University
Committee Members	Duke, Marshall P, Emory University Boli, John E, Emory University

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