 | Crime: Encyclopedia II - Crime - Definition of crime in general
Crime - Definition of crime in general
This section describes usual criminal classifications applicable at present in Western countries. They may differ significantly with those applicable in other cultures; also, they may differ significantly with earlier practices.
Most people who use this word are not "crime" specialists. Generally the word indicates a social concept of the person, where a specific social act is generally considered a deliberate and conscious choice of the choices known to be available to the user of the word. For instance, historically left-handedness, epileptic fits and emotional tantrums have been considered "crimes".
What defines a crime depends on how that crime is viewed. A crime could be viewed from a legal or normative perspective and whether it was in the past or present or in which society the crime was committed. This shows that there is no simple definition of crime. Therefore the meaning of crime could be viewed as a social construction.
Crime - Trial
It is commonly believed that preconceived notions are dominant in all areas of presumed fact. These notions can be based on ethnicity and skin color, sectarianism, sexual orientation, gender, appearance, occupation and education. Participants in a criminal trial may make use these biases in order to achieve their own goals. (For example, a prosecutor in a case of child murder may want to have more women with young children on the jury.)
Since mistakes can be made by the courts and legal process, many appeal mechanisms are available to most legal decisions. The death penalty, which cannot be corrected after the fact if a mistake has occurred, has been on the decline for the past several decades.
In general, in most western systems, the definition of a crime requires the existing intention of committing it (voluntas necandi) in the author, therefore it is usually not officially "punished" when this intention is missing or when the author is not completely sane or is under a certain age.
Depending on the level of psychological education of the Law Enforcement groups, some underage defendants (of varying ages around the world) can sometimes be tried "as an adult" because their character is considered adult, whatever the rationale is behind this.
In another example, there generally exists an insanity defense: an assumed deviant person may not officially be penally responsible for his or her actions. A defendant who uses the insanity defense may be judged guilty like a normal criminal. It is less common to succeed with psychiatric condemnation, and then to be "involuntarily committed" to treatment or corrections. See also Corrections.
Crime - Reasons
Crimes are viewed as offenses against society, and as such are punished by the state. They can be scholastically distinguished, depending on the passive subject of the crime (the victim), or on the offended interest, in crimes against:
- Personality of the State
- Rights of the citizen
- Public administration
- Administration of justice
- Religious sentiment and the pity for dead
- Public order
- Public faith
- Public economy, industry and commerce
- Public morality
- Person and honour
- Patrimony
Or they can be distinguished depending on the related punishment (then, on the degree of offense that the forbidden behaviour caused), in delicts and violations.
The definition of a crime generally reflects the current attitudes prevalent in a society. For example, possession of drugs was not always a crime, while the Prohibition Era made alcohol illegal.
Crime - Classification
Crimes can be divided into several (overlapping) categories: computer offenses[1], crimes against persons, crimes against property, crimes against state security, drug offenses, sexual offenses, and weapon offenses. Crimes are also be grouped by severity, some common categorical terms being: felonies, indictable offenses, misdemeanors, and summary offences. For convenience, infractions are also usually included in such lists, although they are not subject of the criminal law, but rather of the civil law. An inchoate offense is a planned or attempted crime, which the offender was not able to carry out prior to arrest.
The following are crimes in many jurisdictions:
- Arson
- Assault
- Battery
- Blackmail
- Breaking and entering
- Burglary
- Cannibalism
- "Carjacking"
- Child sexual abuse
- Counterfeiting
- Conspiracy
- Criminal threatening
- Domestic violence
- Drug possession
- Embezzlement
- Espionage
- Extortion
- Forgery
- Fraud
- Genocide
- Grave robbing
- Homicide
- Home invasion
- Identity theft
- Illegal gambling
- Kidnapping
- Larceny
- Libel
- Looting
- Manslaughter
- Murder
- Perjury
- Postal fraud
- Prostitution
- Racketeering
- Rape
- Robbery
- Slander
- Smuggling
- Stalking
- Tax evasion
- Theft
- Treason
- Trespass
- Usury
- Vandalism
- Weapon possession
Crime - Aiding and abetting
It may be a crime to aid someone else in committing a crime, or induce him or her to commit one.
Other related archives"Carjacking", 1871, 1952, Actus reus, Adam Smith, Arson, Assault, Babylon, Battery, Blackmail, Breaking and entering, Burglary, Cannibalism, Capital punishment, Case law, Child sexual abuse, Civil law, Consensual crime, Conspiracy, Corrections, Counterfeiting, Crime against humanity, Crime index, Crime mapping, Crime rate, Crime statistics, Criminal justice, Criminal law, Criminal record, Criminal threatening, Criminology, Death penalty, Decriminalization, Detective, Deterrence, Domestic violence, Drug possession, Embezzlement, Enlightenment, Espionage, Extortion, Felony, Forgery, Founding Fathers, Fraud, Genocide, Grave robbing, Hate crime, Home invasion, Homicide, Identity theft, Illegal gambling, Inchoate offense, India, Insanity defense, International crime, Justice, Kidnapping, Larceny, Law, Libel, Looting, Mala in se, Mala prohibita, Manslaughter, Mens rea, Motive, Murder, Organised crime, Patrimony, Perjury, Phase Pardhi, Piracy, Police, Postal fraud, Prison, Prohibition, Prostitution, Public order, Punishment, Racial profiling, Racketeering, Rape, Religious, Rights, Robbery, Sexual crime, Slander, Smuggling, Social control, Social policy, Stalking, State, Statutory law, Strict liability crimes, Sumerians, Tax evasion, Theft, Treason, Trespass, Underground economy, Ur, Ur-Nammu, Usury, Vandalism, Victimology, War crime, Weapon possession, Western, White collar crime, administration, age, aggravating circumstances, alcohol, appeal, arrest, breaches of contract, citizen, civil law, classical liberals, code of Hammurabi, commerce, computer, crime science, criminal law, criminologist, criminology, dead, drug, economy, epileptic fits, fact, faith, felonies, felony, homicide, honour, illegality, inchoate offense, indictable offenses, individual rights, industry, infractions, insanity defense, justice, law, left-handedness, libertarians, malum in se, malum prohibitum, misdemeanors, morality, natural law, paradox, persons, possession of drugs, property, psychologists, punishment, sane, security, sexual, smuggler, society, sociology, state, summary offences, tantrums, theocracy, traffic, victim, weapon, western
 Adapted from the Wikipedia article "Definition of crime in general", under the G.N U Free Docmentation License. Please also see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki |
