Crime

A crime is held to be an offence which goes beyond the personal and into the public sphere, breaking prohibitory rules or laws, to legitimate punishments or sanctions are attached, and which requires the intervention of a public authority(the state or local body)). Ideally, the later administers a formal system for dealing with crime, and employs representative officers (for example a police force) to act on its behalf. In terms of law and jurisprudence, being guilty of the committing of a criminal act usually involves evil intent or conscious intent can be shown to be missing (as, for example, in the cases of children or the insane) then the offence is not a crime and will not attract the usual punishment (although some form of detention or therapeutic treatment may follow).All official statistics are based on the legal definition, as the system of criminal justice is perceive from legal approach and all the empirical studies on criminals focus on crime defined by law. Tappan (1960) has defined crime as “an intentional act or omission in violation of criminal law committed without defense or justification”. Thus, this legal definition of crime postulates that if the act is proved to be in self-defence, or committed in insanity, it will not be considered a crime even if it causes harm or injury to others. Ignorance of law is usually not a defence. According to Hall Jerome (1974) has defined crime as “legally forbidden and intentional action, which has harmful impact on social interests, which has a criminal intent, and which has legally prescribed punishment for it”.

For crime to be known as such it must come to the notice of , and be processed through, an administrative system or enforcement agency. It must be reported and recorded by the police (or other investigator); it may then become part of the criminal statistics; may or may not be investigated; and may or may not result in a court case. Thus recorded crime-rates are socially constructed, and also leave out hidden crime. The latter can include, for example, unreported instances of domestic violence, of attacks on ethnic minorities, indecent assault, and rape. Self-report studies of those involved in delinquency and criminality have confirmed that a large proportion of such behavior is not officially recorded. A more recent wave of studies of victims of crime has also supported the view that the hidden crime figure is very large. One could include various forms of economic crime but, from workplace theft to large-scale fraud, industrial pollution, and contravention of heath and safety legislation, all of which may not be officially recorded as crime but, according to some criminologists, contribute significantly to the hidden crime that affects society. What some have termed victimless crime or crimes without victims (for example those involving drugs, prostitution, and illegal gambling) may break laws but go unreported because those involved enter into a form of agreement and support the transaction. A legal definition of crime may therefore not be sufficient. Crime has also been defined in non-legal or social terms. Caldwell (1956) has defined crime as “those acts or failures to act that are considered to be so detrimental to the well-being of a society, as judged by its prevailing standards, that action regarding them cannot be entrusted to private initiative or to haphazard methods but must be taken by an organized society in accordance with tested procedures”. According to Thorsten Sellin (1970) crime is a “violation of conduct norms of the normative groups”. According to Clinard (1957) all deviations from norms are not crimes. He talk of three types of deviations, tolerated deviations, deviation which is midly disapproved, and deviation which is strongly disapproved. He perceives third type of deviation as crime. Criminologist with a sociological perspective have not claimed that there is no place for the legal definition of crime in criminology. They have only drawn attention to situations I which people who engage in criminal behavior are either not caught or are not acquitted by courts because of inadequate evidence or legal loopholes or pressures. However, Social definition of crime is also cross-questioned on the ground that it is socially constructed and highly relative. Its definition and accepted etiology (or cause) can be influenced by ideas of morality (in relation to responsibility), and by religious faith (the sinful nature of crime), as well as competing scientific claims as to its origins. Taking the reconciliatory position between legal and social definitions of crime, Reid (1975) has said that “the legal definition may be used for compiling statistics on crime and for assigning the label criminal, but the studies undertaken for studying causation of crime should include such persons also in their sample of criminals who admit their crime but are not convicted by court”. The perpetration of crime can be an individual act or be talked of in organizational terms. The concept can also be loosely applied to actions which offend against a set of principles but which do not necessarily involve the breaking of a law such as, crimes of the powerful and the crimes of the state. State ca, of course, use the category crime and criminal law for their own political purposes. Exceptions to and expansions of the law can quickly be introduced in times of national emergency or in the interest of state.