Law and You > Criminal Laws > Indian Penal Code > What is Crime?
In this article, we shall discuss what is crime? What are its forms and its comparison with sin,
List of Sub-Topics:
- Introduction
- Crime as Public Wrong
- Crime as Moral Wrong
- Crime as Conventional Wrong
- Crime as Social Wrong
- Crime as Procedural Wrong
- Crime as Legal Wrong
- Distiction Between Crime and Sin
- Distinction Between Tort and Crime
- Distinction Between Intention and Motive
The word crime is difficult to define, but an attempt at definition essentially must precede the study of crime. Legally, a crime is an act made punishable by law. A criminal is one who has committed such a legally forbidden act. Yet there are other criteria which determine whether a person may be dealt with as a criminal. R. C. Nigam (Law of Crimes in India) says that to answer the question, as to what is a crime, it is to be known at first, what is Law because these two questions are interrelated. The law is a command enjoining a course of conduct. A crime may, therefore, be an act of disobedience to such a law forbidding or commanding it. But then, sometimes, disobedience of all laws may not be a crime, for instance, disobedience of civil laws. Therefore, crime would mean something more than mere disobedience of law. Crime may be viewed from various perspectives with the definitions put forth by various jurists or criminologists or sociologists from time to time.
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Crime as a Public Wrong:
Sir William Blackstone in his book, Commentaries on the Laws of England, defines crimes in two ways, in his work, at the first stage he defines crime as, “An Act committed or omitted in violation of a ‘Public Law’ forbidding or commanding it”. At a second stage, he modified his definition as: “A crime is a violation of the public ‘rights and duties’ due to the whole community, considered as a community”
Crime is defined in Halsbury’s Laws of England as “an unlawful act or default which is an offense against public and renders the person guilty of the act or default liable to legal punishment”.
According to Salmond, the distinction between crimes and civil wrongs is that crimes are public wrongs, whereas civil wrongs are private wrongs. Thus, Salmond maintains that a crime is an act deemed by law to be harmful to society in general, even though its immediate victim is an individual.
Sergeant Stephen, while editing Blackstone’s commentaries modified the definition to some extent as: “A crime is a violation of a right considered in reference to the evil tendency of such violation as regards the community at large”. The definition stresses that crimes are breaches of those laws, which injure the community. The definition narrows down the scope of crime to violation of rights only, whereas criminal law fastens criminal liability even on those persons who omit to perform the duty required by law. For instance, a police officer who silently watches another police officer torturing a person for the purpose of extorting confession is liable for abetting the said offence, as he is under a legal duty to prevent torture. Thus the definition fails to give an adequate and comprehensive definition.
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Crime as Moral Wrong:
Raffaele Garofalo defines crime in some sociological perspective as: “Crime is an immoral and harmful act that is regarded as criminal by public opinion because it is an injury to so much of the moral sense as is possessed by a community- a measure which is indispensable for the adaptation of the individual society”. He considers crime to have been some act ‘labelled’ as criminal by public opinion. His emphasis is also on the moral wrong, but there are some of the conducts though derogate from the moral value of the community, are not considered crimes, for instance, immoral acts like ingratitude, hard-heartedness, callous disregard for sufferings of others, though immoral, do not constitute crime.
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Crime as Conventional Wrong:
Edwin Sutherland, noted criminologist defines crime in terms of criminal behaviour as: “Criminal behaviour is behaviour in violation of criminal law. No matter what the degree of immorality, reprehensibility, or indecency of an act, it is not a crime unless it is prohibited by criminal law. The criminal law, in turn, is defined conventionally as a body of specific rules regarding human conduct which has been promulgated by political authority, which apply uniformly to all members of the class to which the rules refer, and which are enforced by punishment administered by the state, characteristics which distinguish the body of rules regarding human conduct from other rules, are therefore, politicality, specificity, uniformity and penal sanction”. This definition is consistent with the concept ‘nulla poena sine lege’, which means there is no crime without a law. He merely enumerates the characteristics of crime and says that crime is a violation of a criminal law.
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Crime as Social Wrong:
John Gillin, a renowned sociologist defines crime as: “Crime is an act that has been shown to be actually harmful to society, or that is believed to be socially harmful by a group of people that has the power to enforce its beliefs, and that places such act under the ban of positive penalties.”
According to Donald Taft, ‘Crime is a social injury and an expression of subjective opinion varying in time and place”.
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Crime as a Procedural Wrong:
John Austin defines crime in terms of the nature of the proceeding, as: “A wrong which is pursued by the Sovereign or his subordinate is a crime (public wrong). A wrong which is pursued at the discretion of the injured party and his representatives is a civil wrong (private wrong)”.
Prof. Kenny defined crime as: “Crimes are wrongs whose sanction is punitive, and is in no way remissible by any private person, but is remissible by the crown alone, if remissible at all.”
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Crime as a Legal Wrong:
Cross & Jones define crime as a legal wrong the remedy for which is the punishment of the offender at the instance of the State.
A person is not a criminal ‘officially’ until he or she has been defined as such by law. The process of defining what constitutes a crime and who will be defined as a criminal is an important part of criminology. Before the law can properly call a person a criminal, it must go through a series of actions governed at all junctures by well defined legal rules collectively called criminal procedure and in this study are included the Criminal Procedure Code (Code of Criminal Procedure, 1973, Act 2 of 1974), the India Penal Code, 1860 and the Indian Evidence Act, 1872, These procedural rules, however, vary greatly from culture to culture, but almost all modem cultures have a set of rational rules guiding the serious business of officially labelling a person a criminal.
Criminologist Paul Tappan defines crime as “an intentional act or omission in violation of criminal law …, committed without defense or justification, and sanctioned by the state as a felony or misdemeanor.”
This definition is the best fit for a country where a mechanism is installed (e.g. India. In India there being established procedure and criminal and penal laws including laws of evidence, in the form of the Criminal Procedure Code, the Indian Penal Code, the Indian Evidence Act, the task of enforcing the law and administering the criminal justice through various organs of the mechanism established for the purpose, is followed in the strict legal terms. In a society where ‘Rule of Law’ reigns supreme, there has to be a well-built legal system and to run the affairs in the most effective manner enforcement of the law is of utmost necessity.
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Distinction Between Crime & Sin:
| CRIME | SIN |
| It is an action that is against the law or rule written and created by government body | Sin is a religious concept that is a violation of God’s will or an act done against some religious, spiritual or moral belief. |
| It is identified by the state | Sin is identified by God. |
| The punishment of crime is given in this world by the State | The punishment of sin is given after death by the God. |
| Every crime is a sin | Every sin is not a crime |
| It is something that is set by social codes of the country we live in, and if broken a penalty is to be paid. | Sin is a subjective term, and has no parameters to base exactly what it is. It is believed by religious people and ignored by others as a delusion. |
| Brief of crime is given in criminal statutes, penal code, CrPC, etc | Brief of sin is given in religious books. |
| For both believers and non-believers anti-social activities are crime. | For non-believers anti-social activities are not sin |
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Distinction Between Tort and Crime:
| TORT | CRIME |
| Tort implies a wrongful act causing injury or harm for which recovery is sought by the aggrieved party as per civil law, from the person who is responsible for the act. | Crime refers to an offence or wrong or illegal act for which the person conducting it, will be punished under the court of law. |
| A tort is a wrong doing that goes against an individual, | It affects the social order of the community we live in. |
| The intent of a tort can be unintentional, it may be accidental and caused by negligence. | It is an intentional wrong for obtaining wrongful gain. |
| The defendant will be sued in civil court. | The defendant will be prosecuted in criminal court. |
| On being liable the defendant has to pay damages/compensation decided by the court. | On being guilty of the offence, the defendant will be sentenced. |
| Burden of proof lies on the plaintiff. | Burden of proof lies on the prosecution. |
| There is an infringement of individual rights. | There is a violation of public rights. |
| Law of tort is not codified. | Law of crime is codified |
| Aim of law of tort is to protects the rights of a person. | Aim of law of crime is to maintain law and order in society and prevention of crime and punish the wrongdoer. |
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Intention and Motive of a Crime:
Criminal intent (intention) refers to the mental state of mind possessed by a defendant in committing a crime. While the motive is usually used in connection with the Criminal Law to explain why a person acted or refused to act in a certain way.
If ‘X’ has an insurance policy of Rs. 20 lakh and ‘Y’ is the beneficiary of the policy in case of death of ‘X’. ‘Y’ plans a murder of ‘X’ so that he would get the insurance amount. He plans his crime so that it looks like an accident. In this case, the intention of ‘Y’ is to murder ‘X’, while his motive is to get the insured amount after the death of ‘X’.
‘A’ is so poor that she is not able to feed her child. She plans to commit a theft and to use money obtained from it to feed her child. In this case, the intention is to steal but the motive is to feed her child.
A defendant’s motive is important in police investigation and sentencing. Law enforcement personnel often consider potential motives in detecting perpetrators. Judges may consider the motives of a convicted defendant at sentencing and either increase a sentence based on avaricious motives or decrease the sentence if the defendant’s motives were honorable.
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Distinction Between Intention and Motive:
| INTENTION | MOTIVE |
| Intention refers to a purposeful action and a conscious decision to perform an act, which is forbidden by law. | Motive alludes to the ulterior cause, which induces a person to do or abstain from doing a particular act. |
| It is the objective of the act | It is the driving force for the act |
| It is expressed | It is implied |
| It is substantial to determine criminal liability. | It is insubstantial to determine criminal liability. |
| With few exceptions the prosecution in a criminal case must prove that the defendant intended to commit the illegal act. | Proof of motive is not required in a criminal prosecution. |
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In Ganesan v. State, Criminal Appeal (MD) No. 22 of 2011, the Madurai bench of Madras High Court observed that intention is different from motive or ignorance or negligence. Intention requires something more than the mere foresight of the consequence s. The intention is a conscious state in which mental fac
Conclusion:
A crime is an offence that requires community condemnation and punishment, usually by way of fine or imprisonment. Crime is different from a civil wrong (a tort), which is an action against an individual that requires compensation or restitution. Criminal offences are normally prosecuted by the State, whereas it is usually up to an individual to take a civil action to court. It is also possible for an individual to begin criminal proceedings, but this is very rare. Some matters, such as assault, can be both crimes and civil wrongs at the same time. The police can prosecute for assault and the victim can take civil action to recover money (or some other kind of compensation) for any injury suffered.
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