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Crime

2007 Schools Wikipedia Selection. Related subjects: Law

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   See also: Wikibooks:Social Deviance

   A crime is an act that violates a political, religious, or moral
   command considered important in protecting the interests of the State
   or the welfare of its citizens or subjects. The word "crime" came from
   Latin crimen (genitive criminis), from the Latin root cernō and Greek
   κρινω = "I judge". Originally it meant " charge (in law), guilt,
   accusation." In everyday usage, a crime is understood as any act that
   violates a law.

   Informal relationships and sanctions have been deemed insufficient to
   create and maintain a desired social order, resulting in formalized
   systems of social control by the government, or more broadly, the
   State. With the institutional and legal machinery at their disposal,
   agents of the State are able to compel individuals to conform to
   behavioural norms and punish those that do not. Various mechanisms are
   employed to regulate behaviour, including rules codified into laws,
   policing people to ensure they comply with those laws, and other
   policies and practices designed to prevent crime. In addition are
   remedies and sanctions, and collectively these constitute a criminal
   justice system. Not all breaches of the law, however, are considered
   crimes, for example, breaches of contract and other civil law offenses.
   The label of "crime" and the accompanying social stigma are normally
   reserved for those activities that are injurious to the general
   population or the State, including some that cause serious loss or
   damage to individuals. The label is intended to assert an hegemony of a
   dominant population, or to reflect a consensus of condemnation for the
   identified behaviour and to justify a punishment imposed by the State,
   in the event that an accused person is tried and convicted of a crime.
   The term "crime" can also technically refer to the use of criminal law
   to regulate minor infractions, such as traffic violations. Usually, the
   perpetrator of the crime is a natural person, but in some jurisdictions
   and in some moral environments, legal persons are also considered to
   have the capability of committing crimes. The State can also
   technically commit crimes, although this is only rarely reflected in
   the justice system.

Definition of crime in general

   The systematic study of the causes ( aetiology), prevention, control,
   and penal responses to crime is called criminology. For these purposes,
   the definition of crime depends on the theoretical stance taken. The
   nature of crime could be viewed from either a legal or normative
   perspective. A legalistic definition includes common law or the
   statutes codified in the laws enacted by the sovereign government.
   Thus, a crime is any culpable action or omission prohibited by law and
   punished by the State. This is an uncomplicated view: the law, and only
   the law, defines crime.

   A normative definition views crime as deviant behaviour that violates
   prevailing norms, specifically, cultural standards prescribing how
   humans ought to behave. This approach considers the complex realities
   surrounding the concept of crime and seeks to understand how changing
   social, political, psychological, and economic conditions may affect
   the current definitions of crime and the form of the legal, law
   enforcement, and penal responses made by the United States. These
   structural realities are fluid and often contentious. For example, as
   cultures change and the political environment shifts, behaviour may be
   criminalised or decriminalised, which will directly affect the
   statistical crime rates, determine the allocation of resources for the
   enforcement of such laws, and influence public opinion. Similarly,
   changes in the way that crime data are collected and/or calculated may
   affect the public perceptions of the extent of any given "crime
   problem". All such adjustments to crime statistics, allied with the
   experience of people in their everyday lives, shape attitudes on the
   extent to which law should be used to enforce any particular social
   norm. There are many ways in which behaviour can be controlled without
   having to resort to the criminal justice system. Indeed, in those cases
   where there is no clear consensus on the given norm, the use of
   criminal law by the group in power to prohibit the behaviour of another
   group may be considered an improper limitation of the second group's
   freedom, and the ordinary members of society may lose some of their
   respect for the law in general whether the disputed law is actively
   enforced or not.

   Laws that define crimes which violate social norms are set by
   legislatures, and are called mala prohibita. These laws vary from place
   to place, such as gambling laws. Other crimes, called mala in se, are
   nearly universally outlawed, such as murder and rape.

Why criminalize?

     * Criminalization might be intended as a pre-emptive, harm-reduction
       device, using the threat of punishment as a deterrent to those
       proposing to engage in the behaviour causing harm. The State
       becomes involved because they usually believe costs of not
       criminalizing (i.e. allowing the harms to continue unabated)
       outweigh the costs of criminalizing it (i.e. restricting individual
       liberty in order to minimize harm to others).
     * Criminalization may provide future harm reduction even after a
       crime, assuming those incarcerated for committing crimes are more
       likely to cause harm in the future.
     * Criminalization might be intended as a way to make potential
       criminal pay for their crimes. In this case, criminalization is a
       way to set the price that one must pay (to society) for certain
       actions that are considered detrimental to society as a whole. In
       this sense criminalization can be viewed as nothing more than
       State-sanctioned revenge.

   The process of criminalization is controlled by the State because:
     * Even if the victims recognize that they are victims, they may not
       have the resources to investigate and seek legal redress for the
       injuries suffered: the enforcers formally appointed by the State
       have the expertise and the resources.
     * The victims may only want compensation for the injuries suffered,
       while being indifferent to a possible desire for deterrence: see
       Polinsky & Shavell (1997) on the fundamental divergence between the
       private and the social motivation for using the legal system.
     * Victims or witnesses of crimes might be deterred from taking any
       action if they fear retaliation. Even in policed societies, fear
       may inhibit reporting or co-operation in a trial.
     * Victims do not have economies of scale to administer a penal
       system, let alone collect any fines levied by a court (see Polinsky
       (1980) on the enforcement of fines). Garoupa & Klerman (2002) warn
       that a rent-seeking government's primary motivation is to maximize
       revenue and so, if offenders have sufficient wealth, a rent-seeking
       government is more aggressive than a social-welfare-maximizing
       government in enforcing laws against minor crimes (usually with a
       fixed penalty such as parking and routine traffic violations), but
       more lax in enforcing laws against major crimes.
     * The victims may be incapacitated or dead as a result of the crime.

History

   The first civilizations had codes of law, containing both civil and
   penal rules mixed together, though these codes were not always
   recorded. According to Oppenheim (1964), the first known written codes
   were produced by the Sumerians, and it was probably their king Ur-Nammu
   (who ruled over Ur in the 21st century BC) who acted as the first
   legislator, creating a formal system in thirty-two articles. The
   Sumerians later issued other codes including the "code of Lipit-Istar"
   (last king of the 3rd dynasty of Ur, Isin - 20th century BC). This code
   contains some fifty articles and has been reconstructed by the
   comparison among several sources. Kramer (1971: 4) adds a further
   element: "The Sumerian was deeply conscious of his personal rights and
   resented any encroachment on them, whether by his King, his superior,
   or his equal. No wonder that the Sumerians were the first to compile
   laws and law codes."

   In Babylon, Driver and Mills (1952-55) and Skaist (1994) describe the
   successive legal codes, including the code of Hammurabi (one of the
   richest of ancient times), which reflected society's belief that law
   was derived from the will of the gods (see Babylonian law). Many of the
   States at this time were theocratic, and their codes of conduct were
   religious in origin or reference.

   Maine (1861) studied the ancient codes and failed to find any criminal
   law in the modern sense of the word. While modern systems distinguish
   between offences against the "State" or "Community", and offences
   against the "Individual", what was termed the penal law of ancient
   communities was not the law of "Crimes" (crimina); it was the law of
   "Wrongs" (delicta). Thus, the Hellenic laws (see Gagarin: 1986; and
   Garner: 1987) treated all forms of theft, assault, rape, and murder as
   private wrongs, and action for enforcement was up to the victim or
   their survivors (which was a challenge in that although there was law,
   there were no formalized courts in the earliest system). It was the
   Romans who systematized law and exported it to their Empire. Again, the
   initial rules of Roman Law were that assaults were a matter of private
   compensation. The significant Roman Law concept was of dominion (see
   Daube: 1969). The pater familias was in possession of all the family
   and its property (including slaves). Hence, interference with any
   property was enforced by the pater. The Commentaries of Gaius on the
   Twelve Tables treated furtum (modern theft) as if it was a tort.
   Similarly, assault and violent robbery were allied with trespass as to
   the pater's property (so, for example, the rape of a slave would be the
   subject of compensation to the pater as having trespassed on his
   "property") and breach of such laws created a vinculum juris (an
   obligation of law) that could only be discharged by the payment of
   monetary compensation (modern damages). Similarly, in the consolidated
   Teutonic Laws of the Germanic tribes (see Guterman: 1990), there was a
   complex system of money compensations for what would now be considered
   the complete range of criminal offences against the person from murder
   down.

   Even though Rome abandoned England sometime around 400 AD, the Germanic
   mercenaries who had largely been enforcing the Roman occupation, stayed
   on and continued to use a mixture of Roman and Teutonic Law, with much
   written down by the early Anglo-Saxon Kings (see Attenborough: 1963).
   But, it was not until a more unified Kingdom emerged following the
   Norman invasion and the King was attempting to assert power over the
   land and its peoples, that the modern concept emerged, namely that a
   crime is not only an offence against the "individual", it is also a
   wrong against the "State" (see Kern: 1948; Blythe: 1992; and
   Pennington: 1993.). This is a common law idea and the earliest
   conception of a criminal act involved events of such major significance
   that the "State" had to usurp the usual functions of the civil
   tribunals and direct a special law or privilegium against the
   perpetrator. All the earliest criminal trials were wholly extraordinary
   and arbitrary without any settled law to apply, whereas the civil
   delictual law was highly developed and consistent in its operation
   (except where the King wanted to raise money by selling a new form of
   Writ). The development of the idea that it is the "State" dispensing
   justice in a court only emerges in parallel with or after the emergence
   of the concept of sovereignty.

   In continental Europe, Vinogradoff (1909) reports the persistence of
   Roman Law, but with a stronger influence from the Church (see Tierney:
   1964, 1979). Coupled with the more diffuse political structure based on
   smaller State units, rather different legal traditions emerged,
   remaining more strongly rooted in Roman jurisprudence modified to meet
   the prevailing political climate. In Scandinavia, the effect of Roman
   law was not felt until the 17th century, and the courts grew out of the
   things, which were the assemblies of the people. The cases were decided
   by the people (usually largest freeholders dominating) which later
   gradually transformed into a system of a royal judge nominating a
   number of most esteemed men of the parish as his board, fulfilling the
   function of "the people" of yore.

   From the Hellenic system onwards, the policy rationale for requiring
   the payment of monetary compensation for wrongs committed has been to
   avoid feuding between clans and families (note the concept of pater
   familias as a unifying factor in extended kin groups, and the later
   practice of wergild in this context). If families' feelings could be
   mollified by compensation, this would help to keep the peace. On the
   other hand, the threat of feudal warfare was played down also by the
   institution of oaths. Both in archaic Greece and in medieval
   Scandinavia, the accused was released if he could get a sufficient
   number of male relatives to swear him unguilty. This may be compared
   with the United Nations Security Council where the veto power of the
   permanent members ensures that the organization is not drawn into
   crises where it could not enforce its decisions. These means of
   restraining private feuds did not always work or prevented the
   fulfillment of justice but, in the earliest times, the "States" were
   not prepared to provide an independent police force. Thus, criminal law
   grew out of what is now tort and, in real terms, many acts and
   omissions that are classified as crimes overlap civil law concepts.

Natural law theory

   The consistent theoretical problem has been to justify the State's use
   of force to coerce compliance with its laws. One of the earliest
   justifications was the theory of natural law. This posits that the
   standards of morality are derived from or constructed by the nature of
   the world or of human beings. Thomas Aquinas said: "the rule and
   measure of human acts is the reason, which is the first principle of
   human acts" (Aquinas, ST I-II, Q.90, A.I), i.e. since people are by
   nature rational beings, it is morally appropriate that they should
   behave in a way that conforms to their rational nature. Thus, to be
   valid, any law must conform to natural law and coercing people to
   conform to that law is morally acceptable. William Blackstone (1979:
   41) describes the thesis:

          "This law of nature, being co-eval with mankind and dictated by
          God himself, is of course superior in obligation to any other.
          It is binding over all the globe, in all countries, and at all
          times: no human laws are of any validity, if contrary to this;
          and such of them as are valid derive all their force, and all
          their authority, mediately or immediately, from this original."

   But John Austin, an early positivist, applied utilitarianism in
   accepting the calculating nature of human beings and the existence of
   an objective morality, but denied that the legal validity of a norm
   depends on whether its content conforms to morality, i.e. a moral code
   can objectively determine what people ought to do, the law can embody
   whatever norms the legislature decrees to achieve social utility, but
   every individual is free to choose what he or she will do. Similarly,
   Hart (1961) saw the law as an aspect of sovereignty with lawmakers able
   to adopt any law as a means to a moral end. Thus, the necessary and
   sufficient conditions for the truth of a proposition of law were simply
   that the law was internally logical and consistent, and that State
   power was being used with responsibility. Dworkin (2005) rejects Hart's
   theory and argues that fundamental among political rights is the right
   of each individual to the equal respect and concern of those who govern
   him. He offers a theory of compliance overlaid by a theory of deference
   (the citizen's duty to obey the law) and a theory of enforcement, which
   identifies the legitimate goals of enforcement and punishment.
   Legislation must conform to a theory of legitimacy, which describes the
   circumstances under which a particular person or group is entitled to
   make law, and a theory of legislative justice, which describes the law
   they are entitled or obliged to make.

   Indeed, the majority of natural law theorists accept that a primary
   function of the law is to enforce the prevailing morality. The problem
   with this view is that it makes any moral criticism of the law
   impossible in that, if conformity with natural law is a necessary
   condition for legal validity, all valid law must, by definition, be
   morally just. Thus, on this line of reasoning, the legal validity of a
   norm necessarily entails its moral justice. The solution to this
   problem is to admit some degree of moral relativism and to accept that
   norms may evolve over time and, therefore, the continued enforcement of
   old laws may be criticized in the light of the current norms. The law
   may be acceptable but the use of State power to coerce citizens to
   comply with that law is not morally justified. In more modern
   conceptions of the theory, crime is characterized as the violation of
   individual rights. Since rights are considered as natural, rather than
   man-made, what constitutes a crime is also natural, in contrast to
   laws, which are man-made. Adam Smith illustrates this view, saying that
   a smuggler would be an excellent citizen, "...had not the laws of his
   country made that a crime which nature never meant to be so."

   Natural law theory therefore distinguishes between "criminality" which
   is derived from human nature, and "illegality" which is derived from
   the interests of those in power. The two concepts are sometimes
   expressed with the phrases malum in se and malum prohibitum. A crime
   malum in se is argued to be inherently criminal; whereas a crime malum
   prohibitum is argued to be criminal only because the law has decreed it
   so. This view leads to a seeming paradox, that an act can be illegal
   that is no crime, while a criminal act could be perfectly legal. Many
   Enlightenment thinkers such as Adam Smith and the American Founding
   Fathers subscribed to this view to some extent, and it remains
   influential among so-called classical liberals and libertarians.

Reasons

   Antisocial behaviour is criminalised and treated as offences against
   society which justifies punishment by the government. A series of
   distinctions are made depending on the passive subject of the crime
   (the victim), or on the offended interest(s), in crimes against:
     * Personality of the State.
     * Rights of the citizen.
     * Public administration.
     * Administration of justice.
     * Religious sentiment and faith.
     * Public order.
     * Public economy, industry, and commerce.
     * Public morality.
     * Person and honour.
     * Patrimony.

   Or they can be distinguished depending on the related punishment with
   sentencing tariffs prescribed in line with the perceived seriousness of
   the offence with fines and noncustodial sentences for the least
   serious, and in some States, capital punishment for the most serious.

Crime types

   Crime is generally classified into categories, including violent crime,
   property crime, and public order crime.

U.S. classification

   In the United States since 1930, Uniform Crime Reports (UCR) have been
   tabulated annually by the FBI from crime data submitted by law
   enforcement agencies across the United States. This data is compiled at
   the city, county, and State levels into the Uniform crime reports
   (UCR). Violations of laws, which are derived from common law, are
   classified as Part I (index) crimes in UCR data, and further
   categorised as violent and property crimes. Part I violent crimes
   include murder and criminal homicide (voluntary manslaughter), forcible
   rape, aggravated assault, and robbery, while Part I property crimes
   include burglary, arson, larceny/theft, and motor vehicle theft. All
   other crimes are classified as Part II crimes.

   Crimes are also grouped by severity, some common categorical terms
   being: felonies (US and previously UK), indictable offences (UK),
   misdemeanors (US and previously UK), and summary offences (UK). For
   convenience, infractions are also usually included in such lists
   although, in the U.S., they may not be the subject of the criminal law,
   but rather of the civil law.

   The following are crimes in many criminal jurisdictions:

     * Arson (not in English law)
     * Assaults
     * Battery
     * Blackmail
     * Burglary
     * Child sexual abuse
     * Counterfeiting

     * Drug possession
     * Embezzlement
     * Espionage
     * Extortion
     * Forgery
     * Fraud/ Deception offences
     * Homicide

     * Identity theft
     * Illegal gambling
     * Inchoate offenses
     * Kidnapping
     * Larceny
     * Looting

     * Motor vehicle theft/ TWOC
     * Perjury
     * Piracy
     * Rape
     * Robbery
     * Sexual assaults
     * Smuggling

     * Stalking
     * Tax evasion
     * Terrorism
     * Theft
     * Treason
     * Trespass (not in English law)
     * Vandalism (see Criminal Damage Act 1971 for the codified offence in
       English law)
     * Weapon possession

Specific crime spheres

   While the crimes listed above are, likein the US, generally defined and
   punished by the regular (national or lower) civilian (specific penal or
   mere general) justice, other are defined and/or prosecuted within more
   specific spheres of life.

   Under international law, certain acts are defined as criminal and may
   be persecuted by extraodinary procedures, such as
     * Crime against humanity
     * War crime
     * Hate Crimes

   The relationship between religion and crime notions is a complex one.
   Not only have many secular jurisdictions been influenced by the
   (socially accepted or from the top imposed) religious morality, while
   the actual corrolary in that sphere is sin (answerable only to one's
   conscience and divinity, often in the aftermath), in various historical
   and/or present societies or institutionalized religions, systems of
   earthly justice have been established which punish crimes against the
   divine will and/or specific religious (devotional, organisational and
   other) rules under a specific code, such as Islamic sharia or canon law
   (notably within the Roman Catholic church).

   In the (para)military sphere, both 'regular' crimes and specific ones,
   such as mutiny, can be persecuted by special procedures and/or codes.

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