Victimless crimes

Many societies have outlawed actions on the basis of religion or morality. Sumptuary laws, for instance, are regulations that restrict extravagance in dress, food, drink, and household equipment. And acts such as the practice of adultery and homosexuality have frequently been deemed crimes. Gambling, too, is outlawed in many places. Even drug abuse the use of banned or controlled substances has sometimes been called a victimless crime because it, like gambling, involves no attack upon either persons or property.

The term victimless crimes, however, is somewhat inaccurate. Gambling and drug abuse, like alcoholism, are now considered addictions. The person involved victimizes himself as well as his family and friends by his uncontrolled habit. Overcoming these addictions usually requires some type of therapy.

White-collar crime

White-collar crime refers to violations of law by persons who use their jobs to engage in illegal activities. Embezzlement is a typical white-collar crime.

Such violations usually involve fraud, swindle, tax cheating, and other duplicity in financial dealings.

The amount of white-collar crime has grown in advanced nations to the extent that it is one of the costliest crimes in society. Billions of dollars a year are misappropriated through various kinds of swindles far more than in the more conventional crimes of larceny, burglary, forgery, auto theft, and robbery.

Organized crime

Organized crime is one of the largest business enterprises in the advanced industrial societies. While the United Slates has long been deemed the center of organized crime, such activities also flourish in Canada, Japan, France, Great Britain, and other places with prosperous economies. Such profitable endeavors as gambling, drug trafficking, bookmaking, loan sharking, prostitution, protection schemes, labor racketeering, and the numbers racket have long been controlled by various organized crime factions. Most of these activities are local or national in scope, but the increasing use of drugs since 1965 has led to the establishment of international networks of crime in order to move drugs from one country to another, to process them, and to distribute the billions of dollars in profits that result from their sale.

Computer crime

Computer crime is a way to commit crime, not a type of crime. By the mid-1980s computers were in use in nearly every kind of commercial, financial, and industrial enterprise. As record-keeping devices computers are unsurpassed in the amount of information that can be kept on a readily available file. Credit-card companies, banks, savings and loan associations, insurance companies, credit bureaus, and many other institutions keep computerized customer files. This information is for the private and confidential use of the customer and the institution.

Access to such confidential information, as well as to the more complex computer systems operated by government agencies, has been gained by computer experts, often with the intent to defraud or embezzle. Someone working within a bank or other financial organization may easily gain access to the company’s computers to transfer funds to his own or a friend's account or to another bank.

Owners of personal home computers, too, have found ways to break into company computer systems. To accomplish a break-in of this kind, a computer operator needs a modem, a device that will connect his computer by telephone to another computer system. He also needs to know how to access another system through its code. For the average person, this would be a very difficult task; but for someone well-versed in computer logic, it has proved relatively easy. According to an American Bar Association report in 1984, billions of dollars are being lost through computer theft each year.

In each group of words find an odd one not belonging to a certain type of offences. Name each type of offence and explain your choice.

1. gambling — drug trafficking — tax cheating — bookmaking

2. mayhem — battery — sedition — kidnapping;

3. slander — libel — racketeering — medical malpractice

4. trespass — fraud — swindle — tax cheating

5. embezzlement — treason — coup — rebellion

6. disorderly conduct — mayhem — public drunkenness — driving violations

Explain the meaning of the following offences:

malpractice	negligent homicide
felony	mercy killing
misdemeanor	accessory after (before) the fact
petty offense	drug abuse
disorderly conduct	addiction (an addict)
indictable offenses	drug trafficking
premeditated murder	loan sharking