riddle@ut-sally.UUCP (Prentiss Riddle) (05/02/84)
Stuart Wiener (tilt!smw) in reference to a password hacker sentenced to two years of probation: >> Who thinks this guy should have served time in prison? I don't, but >> then I favor probation for most "white-collar" (or victimless) crimes. Am I misreading this, or is Stuart equating white-collar crime and victimless crime? As I understand it, "white-collar" crime refers to a class of crimes committed by people in the upper social, financial or professional classes: embezzlement, tax evasion, certain kinds of fraud, and much computer crime. This sort of crime is generally non-violent, but it most definitely is not "victimless" -- the victims are the owners of the embezzled companies, the U.S. government and citizens who do pay their full taxes, the people who are defrauded, and the operators and users of the computers which are tampered with. "Victimless" crime, on the other hand, generally refers to various vices which directly harm only those who practice them: prostitution, gambling, drug abuse, etc. (One can argue that these crimes have victims, too -- the families of those who indulge, the people who provide the services involved, or even all of society -- but the term "victimless" is commonly used to describe them anyway.) Off the top of my head, I can't think of a n y cases where these two sets of crimes intersect. Although I'm not sure that prison is necessarily the appropriate response to either white-collar or victimless crime, I certainly don't think that the two call for the same sorts of penalties. --- Prentiss Riddle ("Aprendiz de todo, maestro de nada.") --- {ihnp4,seismo,gatech,ctvax}!ut-sally!riddle
smw@tilt.UUCP (Stewart Wiener) (05/02/84)
> From: riddle@ut-sally.UUCP (Prentiss Riddle) > Stuart Wiener (tilt!smw) in reference to a password hacker sentenced to > two years of probation: > > >> Who thinks this guy should have served time in prison? I don't, but > >> then I favor probation for most "white-collar" (or victimless) crimes. > > Am I misreading this, or is Stuart equating white-collar crime and > victimless crime? For the record, I wasn't, but the ambiguous phrasing was deliberate. "Non- violent crime" would probably have been the best way to put it. My position is that prisons are crowded enough (and brutal enough) to be reserved for the purpose of keeping violent criminals away from society. -- Stewart Wiener / Princeton Univ. EECS / princeton!tilt!smw
keith1@hou2h.UUCP (Keith Quarles) (05/02/84)
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Rather than the term "victimless crimes," I prefer the term
"Crimes of Consent." It seems a more accurate description to me.
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Keith Quarles AT&T Consumer Products
...!{ihnp4,houxm}!hou2h!keith1 Neptune, NJnorth@down.FUN (Professor X) (05/02/84)
tilt!smw thinks that people who break into computers should be treated with compassion and put on probation. at princeton we simply cut off their hands: that's what we did to tilt!smw when he tried to grab eosp1!/etc/passwd. and that's why his account is on tilt, not princeton. stephen c. north
dhc@exodus.UUCP (David H. Copp) (05/03/84)
Many people believe that prison is the only punishment that white-collar criminals (actual and potential) truly fear. -- David H. Copp
barryg@sdcrdcf.UUCP (Barry Gold) (05/09/84)
Another good term is "sumptuary" crime (meaning crime on consumption),
since most of the so-called victimless crimes are illegal due to laws
regulating various sorts of lifestyle. (Roman sumptuary laws extended to
governing how many entrees you could serve at a dinner party. Japanese
sumptuary laws extended to governing how large a percentage of your
income you could spend on a daughter's marriage.)
--Lee Gold
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Barry Gold/Lee Gold
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