What constitutes a victimless crime is a complex question. Today, there is still much debate in sociology, criminology, and criminal law about what should and should not be criminalized, and whether and how the criminal justice system should deal with victimless crimes. A victimless crime is a theoretical concept that describes a group of crimes with specific characteristics. Broadly speaking, these offences can be defined as criminal offences where there is no "traditional" victim, but where broader social interests are often protected, raising legal and ethical dilemmas about the legitimacy of protecting these interests through criminal law.
In the introductory part of the theoretical section, I discuss the key definitions of the concept of victimless crimes, the concept of victims, and the development of the concept of victimless crimes itself. This is followed by a presentation of the common characteristics used to define them by foreign and domestic authors. I then define the principles of criminalization as developed by Anglo-American criminal law philosophy. The central part of the thesis is a review of Slovenian legislation, where I begin by presenting the legal basis for incrimination in Slovenian criminal law and define victimless crimes in Slovenian criminal law, followed by a review of individual criminal offenses in the Criminal Code-1 (KZ-1) that I believe can be classified under this concept. I conclude the discussion by presenting the results of the (non)confirmation of my hypothesis that some of the acts criminalized in the Criminal Code can be classified as victimless crimes and are therefore not in line with the principles of modern criminal law.
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