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External WebsitesProfessor of African and Comparative Law, University of Buckingham, England. Emeritus Professor of African Law, School of Oriental and African Studies, University of London. Author of New Essays in.
Antony Nicolas Allott , Thomas J. BernardProfessor, Criminal Justice and Sociology, Pennsylvania State University, University Park. Co-author of Theoretical Criminology and others.
Thomas J. Bernard • All Fact-checked by The Editors of Encyclopaedia BritannicaEncyclopaedia Britannica's editors oversee subject areas in which they have extensive knowledge, whether from years of experience gained by working on that content or via study for an advanced degree. They write new content and verify and edit content received from contributors.
The Editors of Encyclopaedia Britannica Last Updated: Aug 17, 2024 • Article History Table of Contents
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crime, the intentional commission of an act usually deemed socially harmful or dangerous and specifically defined, prohibited, and punishable under criminal law.
Most countries have enacted a criminal code in which all of the criminal law can be found, though English law—the source of many other criminal-law systems—remains uncodified. The definitions of particular crimes contained in a code must be interpreted in the light of many principles, some of which may not actually be expressed in the code itself. For example, many legal systems take into account the mental state of the accused person at the time the alleged crime was committed. Most legal systems also classify crimes for the purpose of assigning cases to different types of court. Social changes often result in the adoption of new criminal laws and the obsolescence of older ones.
This article focuses on the definition and classification of crime, how it is measured and detected, the characteristics of offenders, and the various stages of criminal proceedings. The material draws principally from common, or Anglo-American, law, with supplementary treatment of civil-law and other systems, including Islamic, African, and Chinese law. For full treatment of particular legal aspects of crime, see criminal law; civil law; common law; court; police; and procedural law. Particular legal systems are treated in Roman law; Germanic law; Chinese law; Indian law; Sharīʿah (Islamic law); and Soviet law. Aspects related to crime are also addressed in criminal justice; criminology; juvenile justice; parole; prison; and punishment.
Criminal behaviour is defined by the laws of particular jurisdictions, and there are sometimes vast differences between and even within countries regarding what types of behaviour are prohibited. Conduct that is lawful in one country or jurisdiction may be criminal in another, and activity that amounts to a trivial infraction in one jurisdiction may constitute a serious crime elsewhere. Changing times and social attitudes may lead to changes in criminal law, so that behaviour that was once criminal may become lawful. For example, abortion, once prohibited except in the most unusual circumstances, is now lawful in many countries, as is homosexual behaviour in private between consenting adults in most Western countries, though it remains a serious offense in some parts of the world. Once criminal, suicide and attempted suicide have been removed from the scope of criminal law in some jurisdictions. Indeed, in the U.S. state of Oregon the Death with Dignity Act (passed in 1997) allows terminally ill individuals to end their lives through the use of lethal medications prescribed by a physician. Nonetheless, the general trend has been toward increasing the scope of criminal law rather than decreasing it, and it has been more common to find that statutes create new criminal offenses rather than abolishing existing ones. New technologies have given rise to new opportunities for their abuse, which has led to the creation of new legal restrictions. Just as the invention of the motor vehicle led to the development of a whole body of criminal laws designed to regulate its use, so the widening use of computers and especially the Internet has created the need to legislate against a variety of new abuses and frauds—or old frauds committed in new ways.
In most countries, the criminal law is contained in a single statute, known as the criminal, or penal, code. Although the criminal codes of most English-speaking countries are derived from English criminal law, England itself has never had a criminal code. English criminal law still consists of a collection of statutes of varying age—the oldest still in force being the Treason Act (1351)—and a set of general principles that are chiefly expressed in the decisions of the courts (case law). England’s lack of a criminal code is not the result of a lack of effort; since the early 19th century, there have been several attempts to create such a code. The first effort (1833–53) was made by two panels of criminal-law commissioners, who systematically surveyed the prevailing state of the criminal law. Confronted by a vast number of often overlapping and inconsistent statutes, the commissioners found that determining precisely what the law provided on any particular topic was enormously difficult. Different statutes covering the same conduct, often with widely varying penalties, allowed for wide judicial discretion and inconsistency in punishments. The commissioners drew up a number of draft codes that were presented to Parliament, but none was enacted. Eventually, owing to the judiciary’s resistance, efforts to codify the criminal law were abandoned, and instead there was a consolidation of most of the criminal law in 1861 into a number of statutes—the Larceny Act, the Malicious Damage Act, and the Offences Against the Person Act being among the most important. Because those statutes were consolidations rather than codifications, many of the inconsistencies of the earlier legislation were preserved. The Offences Against the Person Act is still largely in force, though the others have been replaced by more-modern provisions.
Interest in codification was not limited to England. A similar process ensued in India, then under British rule, and a criminal code was written during the 1830s and eventually enacted in 1861. The code remains substantially in force in India, as well as in Pakistan. Certain parts of Africa that were once British colonies also adopted similar codes.
