According to a recent study of police recorded crimes in the area of Nottinghamshire, England, crimes against businesses in the area have been on the rise. It's estimated that a crime is taking place roughly every 30 minutes according to their data.

The crimes range from burglary to robbery, theft by an employee, shoplifting, and more.

To be clear, these are all activities that violate the property rights of the store owner, and the victim then is the property owner-the store owner. If you rob someone or steal from work, these are not and have never been described as victimless crimes.

Retail crime is growing and it's prompted one director of policy for the East Midlands Chamber to make the bold claim that there is no such thing as a victimless crime.

But surely there is, there are many.

A crime can be any action or "offense" that can be prosecuted by the state and this includes many victimless actions.

For example, if you have two adults that are willingly entering into an exchange, no one is forcing them to exchange, and they are doing so willingly, peacefully, and both parties feel as if they are benefiting from the arrangement, the state can still deem their exchange to be a crime. But there aren't any victims in that scenario, because both parties feel they are better off from the exchange. Drug exchanges are a quick and easy example.

This doesn't mean that all activity within the drug market itself is victimless. However, when one party is looking to purchase drugs and one is looking to sell, there are no victims in that scenario at least according to those who are making the arrangement.

Yes there are victimless crimes, and the state continues to make billions off of prosecuting them and infringing upon such natural rights and freedoms.

When bob buys a sandwich from his local shop down the street, is he a victim? or is the store owner a victim? No. Though, you might reason yourself there eventually if you consider what he is doing to his body, by eating food that you personally might not agree with. But I am sure that if you ask bob if he feels victimized for having the freedom to make the exchange and get that sandwich, he would say otherwise.

This isn't the first time that such a nonsense claim has been made, that there aren't any victimless crimes.

If all of the rules were just however, in deeming someone a criminal for a particular action that's prohibited at the time, then we wouldn't have a history of jury nullification being exercised to say otherwise.

When an action doesn't violate the property rights of someone else it is hard to see how there is any victim, because there isn't when no abuse has taken place and no individual has committed aggression against an innocent party. There shouldn't be any punishments associated with such actions, because a group, no matter what name they give themselves, shouldn't be able to commit aggression against an innocent party when that individual hasn't wronged another.

Supporting the infringement upon such natural rights seems like a quick way to grow the disease that is the state, at the expense of individual liberty with each step forward. Eventually, you will need to ask permission to engage in a countless range of activities: fishing, driving, camping, selling, growing, painting, traveling. We shouldn't seek to make criminals where there aren't any.

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