Public Order Crimes - Research Paper Example

?Public Order Crimes Before going to discuss the impact of public order crimes on society, let us get a better understanding of what public order crimes actually are. Public order crimes are such crimes, which are primarily related to sex and use of drugs. Public order crimes are also known as victimless or consensual crimes. “A victimless crime is one where an act that violates an established law is committed, without leaving a victim behind; that is, there is no resulting damage to a person or property”1. Public order crimes do not put any direct impact on the community but they indirectly harm the foundations of a society. Such crimes occur with the consent of the involved people and there is no direct victim of these crimes. In this paper, we will discuss some of the widely observed public order crimes and their prevalence in the city of Chicago. Some of the main public order crimes that occur in Chicago include prostitution, pornography, drug trafficking, white-collar crimes, and alcoholism. Let us discuss all of them in some detail along with their prevalence in Chicago. Prostitution Prostitution is one of the most common public order crimes being faced by the whole world. Prostitution is the business of getting money in return of providing sexual services to other people. If we talk about Chicago, the police department registers thousands of new prostitution cases every year. I believe that this activity should be free from government and law enforcement interference because it does not produce any kind of harm to any person in the society. Prostitution as a business based totally on the will of the involved women. It provides sexual independence to women so it is not a forced sexual activity. It is a private business transaction, which cannot be performed without the will of the women. No one has the right to stop a woman from fulfilling her sexual desires whether she fulfils it with her boyfriend, with husband, or with some stranger in return of money. In Chicago, prostitution is not viewed as a serious crime, which can harm some other person. The reason is that this activity does not take place without the will of both men and women. Pornography Pornography refers to the act of using sexual images to make the viewers arouse sexually. People view pornographic material to get sexual satisfaction. Pornography is a victimless crime and is meant to provide sexual pleasure to the viewers. People involved in the act or business of pornography show pornographic material to other people through many ways, such as, through books, websites, magazines, paintings, photos, and videos. Pornography is a consensual act because a woman shows her body to other people with her own will. Snatching the right of porn from a woman is like snatching the sexual freedom from that woman. Although pornography is a public order crime, it does not violate the rights of women. Access to pornographic material is the right of every individual. Such feminists believe that pornography does not harm the status of women in a society rather it makes women fulfill their sexual frustration while keeping their privacy intact. The truth is that pornography harms the social status of women by showing them as something to be enjoyed. In Chicago, the graph of this crime seems to be low. The reason is that Chicago has a small porn industry as compared to other cities of the United States. The total number of porn movies coming from Chicago is very less as compared to the number of movies that come from Los Angeles. Almost 90 percent of the porn movies come from Los Angeles. Drug Trafficking Drug trafficking is one of those issues which are being faced by the United States for many years. “It refers to the illegal process through which narcotics and other illegal drugs are produced, transported, and sold”2 (Sherman, 2010, p. 7). Drug trafficking is the exchange of drugs between different drug dealers. It not only includes manufacturing of different drugs but also includes selling of drugs to the related people. It is also a victimless crime because no one of forced to use drugs. Every person who takes some sort of drug takes it at his/her own consent. Drug traffickers provide money to the drug manufacturing organizations, precipitate drug addiction, and launder drug-based money3 (Chatterjee, 1989, p. 89). If we talk about the graph of drug trafficking in Chicago, we come to know that in the United States of America, Chicago is the place where drug trafficking is at its peak. Mexico based drug traffickers use Chicago as their main command and control center. Government of America needs to put real efforts to destroy the drug control and command chain in Chicago because drugs acts as poison which harms the youth of a society. White Collar Crimes White-collar crimes are such crimes, which are committed by those persons who are at some higher rank, and they misuse their positions to get personal favors. We can also say that usually government officials and bureaucrats commit white-collar crimes. White-collar crimes are not violent in nature; rather they involve such crimes, which are committed for some specific financial purposes. White-collar crimes are offensive crimes, but they are less punishable as compared to violent crimes. However, it does not mean that white-collar crimes do not harm the community; rather they affect the society in the long run. Some common types of white-collar crimes include embezzlement, cellular phone fraud, computer crime, bankruptcy fraud, corruption, black mailing, bribery, counterfeiting, pension fund crime, charity fund crime, financial crimes, and occupational crimes. White-collar crimes are not violent but their consequences are sometimes even more harmful than the violent crimes. White-collar criminals generally include those people who already have a high status in the society. These people include bank officers, bureaucrats, government servants, business people, and politicians. The strategies, which have been proved successful in the reduction of white-collar crimes, are Crime Prevention through Awareness and Procedural Design (CPTAPD) and Crime Prevention through Environmental Design (CPTED). People get involved in white-collar crimes when they see that the chances of being caught are very less as compared to the benefits of crimes. Although the government of America has achieved some success in reducing white-collar crimes in Chicago by setting up corruption free systems, the graph of such crimes has not fallen considerably yet. FBI claims that white-collar crimes in Chicago cost nearly $ 75 billion annually, which is really a very big figure. Alcoholism Excessive drinking has also become a common public order crime in Chicago. Some people drink excessively and create problems for the peace of the society. There are many reasons why people consume alcohol in large quantities. Some of the main reasons include social influence, intoxication, nice taste, relaxation, and decrease in depression. The intoxication associated with alcoholic products and the relaxation that a person gets by using alcohol are two of the main causes behind increase in the graph of drinking. Many people drink in order to escape from the hardships of life, such as, poor performance in professional life, problems in love life, and to get out of depression. Social influence is one of the main factors behind use of alcoholic drinks among youth of Chicago. In Chicago, the trend is that people serve such drinks in functions, in homes, and in different ceremonies and this one of the main reasons behind increase in the graph of alcoholism in Chicago. The above-mentioned crimes were some of the major public order crimes that occur in the city of Chicago. The rate of occurrence is not the same for each of the crimes discussed in the paper. Prostitution, drug trafficking, and excessive alcoholism seem to be on rise whereas there is no considerable increase in the occurrence of white-collar crimes and pornography. Bibliography Chatterjee, Sirsrivas. Drug Abuse and Drug-Related Crimes: Some Unresolved Legal Problems. Dordrecht: Kluwer Academic Publishers, 1989. Print. Pollick, Michael. “What is a Victimless Crime?.” Wisegeek.com. http://www.wisegeek.com/what-is-a-victimless-crime.htm (accessed October 15, 2011). Sherman, Jill. Drug Trafficking. Minnesota: ABDO Publishing Company, 2010. Print. Read More