Table of Contents
Abstract
Illegal drug use, money laundering, and prostitution present a great social challenge to population and a significant negative effect on the economy. Drug use significantly contributes to poor health to individuals and increase in crime rate pausing a danger to the society and financial burden to the government to eliminate this menace. Similarly, prostitution exposes people to some health concerns such as the spread of venereal diseases, unwanted pregnancy and increased crime, all that have a huge impact on the society. Younger generations drop from schools to join this vice endangering their future. Finally, money laundering has a profound economic implication in the society with a threat to sink a country into a deep inflation crisis. Besides the uncontrolled money often plays a significant part in funding criminal activities. The three crimes have a detrimental effect on the society affecting virtually every individual threatening the security and peace of the community and country. Having and enforcing laws against these crimes is crucial in the protection of people in the society from these crimes and their effects.
Keywords: illegal drug use, money laundering, prostitution, crime
Illegal Drug Use, Illegal Prostitution, and Money Laundering
The government has strived to enact various laws to promote safety and tranquility in its populations from crimes resulting from drug use, prostitution and money laundering. Other society groups such as religious institutions, media, and not-for-profit, nongovernmental organization have always played a key role in the elimination of these vices from the society, but they continue to exist in generations with illegal drug use, money laundering and prostitution continuing to threaten peace. Vincent & Baron (2015) defines illegal drug use as production, distribution, and use of outlawed or controlled behavior-altering chemicals, for example, cocaine, marijuana, and ketamine among others. Money laundering entails possessing and legitimizing money obtained from illegal activities such as illegal drug sale and prostitution among others. On the other hand, prostitution is an old practice of exchange of sex for money. Illegal prostitution entails getting people to practice in the vice against their will through human trafficking in brothels and other leisure houses. Illegal drug use, money laundering, and prostitution are economic and social problems pausing a great challenge to governments around the world.
Illegal Drug Use
Drugs have been used to ease suffering to people, curing of diseases, and relieving suffering among people (Bryans, 2014). Accepted drugs for use are often approved by food and Drug Agency (FDA) and are those with high medicinal values with little or no detrimental effects on the body of a human being. Illegal drugs are mostly leisure drugs with little or no medicinal value. Besides, habitual forming medicinal or controlled medical drugs are also prone to abuse and consequent illegal use. Example of illegal drugs is heroin, marijuana, and cocaine among others. Given their health consequences, many states have illegalized the use of these drugs and strived to cut their supply in an attempt to keep the society free from these drugs. States have also devised laws to guide the distribution of these drugs for legal use in medicine for those with therapeutic value (Fuller & Garfein, 2014). However, these drugs still find their way to the public pausing a great danger to the populations. The distribution of these drugs entails the use of the gangs who use unfair means to remove any competition and police from their ways contributing to the loss of lives. Use of drugs at different ages has been associated with many health issues.
People use drugs for various reasons. The main reason is to make them feel high and thus hide from their daily challenges. This has made many people addicted to the problem of drug use a serious health problem that prevents them from performing day-to-day activities. Their performance in work and classroom has dropped significantly due to impairment of illegal drug use (Fuller & Garfein, 2014). Another reason for engagement in illegal drug use is to reduce day-to-day stress. The drugs usually make the person who is in psychological torture to feel normal and make the solution temporary. This later may culminate to be an addiction if not correctly controlled. Secondly, the product of influence may also be a reason as to why the young people may engage in the use of illegal drugs. They tend to follow the behaviors of their friends and thus find themselves becoming drug addicts. Some of the people also get involved in the use of illegal drugs to forget the painful memories and experiences (Huisman & Kleemans, 2014). To avoid them, they tend to turn to the use of illegal drugs. Additionally, one may involve in drugs used to get a sense of belonging and recognition by their mates. By engaging in drugs, the individuals use them to get a nice feeling of life at inception.
Illegal drug use has a profound effect on the individual and society. Firstly, drug use has been associated with violence and aggression in families and society. The primary violence in illegal drug use is associated with the distribution of the drug in an attempted to eliminate people who might like police and competitors. Besides, prolonged drug use leads to the development of violent behavior among individuals. A study by Fuller & Garfein, (2014), showed that use of hard drugs lead to violence and as a result lead to the breaking up of most relationships and families. The use of hallucinogens like magic mushrooms, phencyclidine, synergic acid, and MDMA causes hallucinations through alteration of individual’s perceptions. Consequently, the drugs cause thinking disorders like illusion, hallucinations, pressured speech, and delusions among others that are prime symptoms of most mental disorders (Immordino & Russo, 2015). Setting in of mental disorder and addiction among drug users turns an individual into a liability of the community and to the government due to hefty costs of treatment and rehabilitation. By condoning the behavior, the overall performance of an individual to daily activities goes down, the government or their families may decide to rehabilitate the victim.
Illegal drug use affects the society and government in a big use. Use of drugs restricted drugs makes people impulsive thus making them prone to endanger the community. For instance, a poor judgment resulting from drug use contributes to promiscuity, sharing of syringes and prostitution (Vincent & Baron, 2015). Besides, the impulsivity developing from drug use may cause rape and physical abuse leading to increased pregnancy, the spread of sexually transmitted diseases and injury to individuals (Immordino & Russo, 2015). Secondly, dependency, mental sickness, long imprisonment and rehabilitation periods associated with illegal drug use robs the country the much-needed labor in nation-building. Finally, illegal drug use contributes to the increased crime rate in the society endangering lives of people.
Illegal Prostitution
Prostitution is an old practice of exchange of sex for money. Illegal prostitution entails human trafficking and forced people especially underage into this vice. Prostitution has been demonized in the recent past with most people in different communities around the world considering it as evil. The legal questions about sex have been in the limelight with respect to the service, which is offered in engaging in prostitution. Prostitution has been termed to be illegal in some countries in the world. Some states have passed laws with huge penalties for those who engage in the act (Huisman & Kleemans, 2014). However, even as prostitution is regarded to be illegal in some countries, other places have passed laws of legalizing prostitution for instance in Mexico. Some states do not have any regulation, which is meant to regulate prostitution (Immordino & Russo, 2015). Most of the stakeholders who have insisted on the making prostitution legal claim it will ensure that the sex workers are protected whereas those proposing the legalizing of it claims that it contributes mainly to human trafficking and creates demand for the victims.
People engage in illegal prostitution for different reasons. First, prostitution is a way of earning an income to some people. Among low and middle-income individuals, prostitution becomes the avenue, which is resorted to by most of the people. People see it as an easier way to make instant profits or to make extra income. Prostitution is the practice of younger individuals as opposed to old. Students engage in this endeavor to raise their educational fee, support their family and meet other expenses (Huisman & Kleemans, 2014). Besides, people may engage in this promiscuity due to influence from others, peer pressure and by being forced. Most teenagers enter into this habit by blindly following their peers for approval or getting money to buy drugs among drug users. With time, it becomes a hobby to engage in leisure time. Other youth and adults are forced into this vice through human trafficking leaving them with very little choice rather practice to support themselves (Huisman & Kleemans, 2014). Finally, people may enter prostitution due to failed families. When some of the marriages fail to offer the comfort and the sexual satisfaction, prostitution has been an alternative for most people.
Whereas most people see prostitution to have less impact on the society and individuals, it has economic and health implications to the society and individuals. Prostitution greatly destroys the reputation of individuals and the quality of their lives as compared to people neighboring. It diminishes emotions of individuals and compassion for each other with the majority of them receiving trauma each day (Freedman, 2017). Secondly, prostitution has been seen to increase human trafficking malpractice as people form cartels and the groups illegally to increase the supply of cheap specialized prostitutes. Therefore, the business has remarkable proceeds but in turn detriments the quality of life, freedom, and dignity of people. In addition, prostitution may act as a catalyst, which may lead to the spread of certain diseases like HIV and AIDS. This may lead to the social problems to the affected individuals, and it may lead to the breaks in most families and result in orphans (Freedman, 2017). Most of the individuals who suffer in the marriages may be attributed to prostitution. The victims of prostitution may also suffer assault, rape, psychological torture and other detrimental effects.
Money Laundering
This is a general term describing the process used by convicts to masquerade the original ownership and manage their proceeds of the activity of criminals conduct through ensuring that they appear to have come from the legitimate source. Money launders use the institutions of finance in carrying out this heinous crime. Money laundering attracts a hefty punishment in many states owing to its economic implication (Yeoh, 2014). The criminal activities often begin when the money obtained illegally or through criminal activity like drug, trafficking of prostitution is introduced into the system. The reintroduction of illegal untaxed money into any economy leads to inflation that affects other hard working community members. Money laundering activity has some detrimental effects to the economy even when the little amount is involved since when the money enters circulation it can be used for exchange.
Money laundering is always linked to criminal activity and tax evasion. The crimes of this nature often have effects cutting across the social, political, economic, and cultural aspects thus cannot be accepted any society. Money laundering causes staggering of any economy resulting to decreased growth rates of any country especially in social and security aspects. Besides, it creates unfavorable competition among business since majority of the laundered money is often taxed. Lack of system to detect this fraud often causes increase of illicit activities threatening any nation. Besides, money laundering foster the development of illicit activities like drug trafficking and prostitution all that have negative implication on the economy
The developing country economy is also greatly affected by the money which is laundered is injected into the financial systems having no strict regulations mechanisms. The banks also collapse due to the policies of finance, which appear to be hard to apply (Bryans, 2014). The tax revenue losses are also experienced since the revenue is lost due to the money, which is laundered and not rather taxed. The worry for the money laundering act which is successful is that there evolve more crimes, acts in connection to terrorism, and more drugs (Freedman, 2017). It is therefore essential for the countries to ensure that the individuals who get involved in the acts of money laundering are severely punished, and the economies of the financial sector are properly regulated.
Conclusion
Even with stringent laws, the problems of illegal drug use, prostitution, and illegal money, laundering continues to affect governments negatively. Some of the consequences, which have been reported, include violence in families, difficulties in relationships among others. Prostitution has also been an unfortunate aspect of the human condition especially the young women who have taken enormous risks in the streets in search of money with some laws prohibiting the vice have been made. Money laundering, on the other hand, has been a large-scale hindrance to the economic growth. This paper will look into detail the crimes of illegal prostitution, money laundering, and illegal drug use, its effects to the society, measures taken to curb them.
Eliminating these three vices needs string government commitments through strict enforcement of laws. Law apparatus should be well equipped with relevant tools like ICT, budget and personnel among others. Besides, elimination of these vices and their effect needs community participation. The community understands its people well an information that it could utilize to eliminate this issue since it affects it directly. Finally, people need to make individual effort to overcome the vices like prostitution and drug use. Given that these affect them directly, they stand a chance to benefit at the end.
It is evident that the world is facing some challenges because of the illegal activities. Most governments in the world have passed bills, which dictate how people should live, behave, and relate. The relevant authorities have taken the obligations to ensure that the bill of rights is respected and adhered to by every person. It is evident that the crime rates have increasingly been escalating now and then. The usage of the illegal drugs, money laundering, and illegal prostitution may look victimless, but their eventual effects have been seen to be harsh and are felt by most people in the society and those involved in the crimes. The motives for the involvement of the people in the crimes form the basis for the rehabilitation of the victims of the same. The judicial processes are necessary to discourage the practices, but then, a different dimension of sufficiency should be made in order for its success. Rehabilitation will be much better than the legal systems, which continually have left those involved in the illegal activities to be scot-free after some time.
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