CJUS 340 Research Question - Essay Example

CJUS 340 Research Question of Is There Such a Thing as "Victimless" Crime? The existence or lack thereof of laws against victimless crimes has been a rather controversial and hotly debated issue not only in the criminal justice system but also in other public spheres with quite divergent views surfacing in discussions. In general terms, a victimless crime is an action, which although considered illegal, does not directly infringe others’ rights (McWilliams, 1996). While a cross section of society believes there is no such thing as a victimless crime, others feel that such crimes abound in modern society.

Examples of such crimes in which one or two/more parties consent to commit a crime that does not hurt or violate a third party are prostitution, suicide, and gambling (McWilliams, 1996). Since no two victimless crimes are similar, these crimes have been categorized as low level or high level victimless crimes. This research seeks to answer the question “Is there such a thing as a victimless crime? To obtain and analyze data on this question, interviews and questionnaires will be presented to different types of participants who will have been recruited into the study.

The targeted potential participants include inmates, junior and senior criminal justice system officers such as investigators and lawyers. Further, perpetrators of the alleged victimless crimes will be interviewed for their opinions and feelings about their crimes. Through face-to-face interviews and correspondence, participants will be able to give their views on this rather controversial issue. This collection of data will be followed by an exhaustive analysis of the responses given and presentation of the obtained outcome.

To be included in the presentation are the numerous recommendations that the participants will have given in response to questions that seek their opinion on the way forward on the issue of victimless crimes.As is the case in any other research, all the ethical and legal regulations will be obsereved and adhered to during the entire research, particularly the data collection and analysis stages, which require conformity to several legal and ethical requirements. For instance, the consent of all participants will be sought and the implication of their participation made quite clear to them.

Further, the information given by participants will be treated confidentially. ReferenceMcWilliams, P. (1996). Aint nobodys business if you do: the absurdity of consensual crimes in our free country? Prelude Press.