What Is Criminal Law?
Textbook Notes
Herring
What is Crime?
• Is it possible to define a crime? o Wide range of conduct can be the basis for criminal offences. Can a definition of ‘crime’ be found which includes all of these offences?
• L Farmer “Definitions of Crime” o There is no simple and universally accepted definition of crime in the modern criminal law o Most actions are only criminal because there is a law that declares them to be so- so this must be the starting point for any definition o 2 main categories; MORAL and PROCEDURAL o MORAL : most definitions of crime are based on the claim that there is or should be some intrinsic quality that is shared by all acts criminalized by the state o “all crimes are an important sense moral wrongs or mala in se and the law merely recognizes this wrongful quality
• Weakness : could extend to certain actions which seemed morally neutral (mala prohibita). Such as speeding or failing to register the birth of a child (which have been made crimes by statute)
• Argued that crimes are such because criminal law recognized public wrongs as violations of rights/duties owed to the whole community. The wrong is seen as the breach of the duty owed to the community to respect the law.
• Covers a broader range of offences as well as recognizing the sociological fact that many acts are criminal only by virtue of being declared so by the law. o PROCEDURAL : define crimes as those acts which might be prosecuted or punished under criminal procedure.
• Glanville Williams 1955, a crime is : “an act capable of being followed by criminal proceedings having a criminal outcome, and a proceeding or its outcome is criminal if it has certain characteristics which mark is as criminal”.
• Whether a particular kind of conduct should be regarded as criminal – as a response to political and social factors/depends on where in the world you live.
• Distinguishing crimes from civil wrongs : o Hit someone – may be prosecuted for criminal offence of
Herring
What is Crime?
• Is it possible to define a crime? o Wide range of conduct can be the basis for criminal offences. Can a definition of ‘crime’ be found which includes all of these offences?
• L Farmer “Definitions of Crime” o There is no simple and universally accepted definition of crime in the modern criminal law o Most actions are only criminal because there is a law that declares them to be so- so this must be the starting point for any definition o 2 main categories; MORAL and PROCEDURAL o MORAL : most definitions of crime are based on the claim that there is or should be some intrinsic quality that is shared by all acts criminalized by the state o “all crimes are an important sense moral wrongs or mala in se and the law merely recognizes this wrongful quality
• Weakness : could extend to certain actions which seemed morally neutral (mala prohibita). Such as speeding or failing to register the birth of a child (which have been made crimes by statute)
• Argued that crimes are such because criminal law recognized public wrongs as violations of rights/duties owed to the whole community. The wrong is seen as the breach of the duty owed to the community to respect the law.
• Covers a broader range of offences as well as recognizing the sociological fact that many acts are criminal only by virtue of being declared so by the law. o PROCEDURAL : define crimes as those acts which might be prosecuted or punished under criminal procedure.
• Glanville Williams 1955, a crime is : “an act capable of being followed by criminal proceedings having a criminal outcome, and a proceeding or its outcome is criminal if it has certain characteristics which mark is as criminal”.
• Whether a particular kind of conduct should be regarded as criminal – as a response to political and social factors/depends on where in the world you live.
• Distinguishing crimes from civil wrongs : o Hit someone – may be prosecuted for criminal offence of