The second lecture in criminology
Definition of Crime
According to its legal concept, a crime is an act forbidden and made punishable by the law.
But according to its criminological concept, for the act to be a crime, it must meet the following conditions;
1. The act must be done by a person Of competent age.
2. The act must be voluntary, and the person who does it must also be free from certain forms of compulsion.
3. The act must be intentional.
4. Knowledge in various degrees according to the nature of different offenses must accompany it.
5. The act is done by malice, but sometimes it is done by negligence.
- Mala in se and Mala Prohibita
Both the Positivist ad Classical Schools take a consensus view of crime – that a crime is an act that violates the basic values and beliefs of society. Those values and beliefs are manifested as laws that society agrees upon. However, there are two types of laws:
Natural laws are rooted in core values shared by many cultures. Natural laws protect against harm to persons (e.g. murder, rape, assault) or property (theft, larceny, robbery), and form the basis of common law systems.
• Statutes are enacted by legislatures and reflect current cultural mores, albeit that some laws may be controversial, e.g. laws that prohibit marijuana use and gambling. Marxist Criminology, Conflict Criminology and Critical Criminology claim that most relationships between State and citizen are non-consensual and, as such, criminal law is not necessarily representative of public beliefs and wishes: it is exercised in the interests of the ruling or dominant class. The more right wing criminologies tend to posit that there is a consensual social contract between State and citizen.
Therefore, definitions of crimes will vary from place to place, in accordance to the cultural norms and mores, but may be broadly classified as blue-collar crime, corporate crime, organized crime, political crime, public order crime, state crime, state-corporate crime, and white-collar crime.
norms and mores.
