CRIMINAL JUSTICE SYSTEM

TOPIC 2 : CRIME AND SOCIAL DEVIANCE

A) DEFINITION AND INTRODUCTION TO CRIME

- A crime is any act or omission (failure to fulfil moral legal or obligation) that violates a law
which results in punishment.
- Crime may be said an anti-social, immoral or sinful behaviour act.
- However, according to legal definition, crime is any from of conduct which is declared to be
socially socially harmful in a state and as such forbidden by law under pain of some
punishment.
- According certain academicians, crime is a wrong to society involving breach of legal wrong
which has criminal consequences attached to it i.e prosecution by state in the criminal court and
the possibility of punishment being imposed on the wrongdoer.
- Punishments can range from the payment of a fine to imprisonment.
- For an example, parking in a two hour parking zone for three hours is a crime, and the
Punishment usually involves an individual paying a fine.
- On the other hand, robbing someone at gun point is a much more serious crime and
This can result in a prison sentence.

Stages of crime

- There are three distinct stages of crime

i) Intention

ii) Preparation

iii) Attempt
- INTENTION is the first stage of a crime. Intention simply means the guilty intention of a person
against another person, as it helps a person to design and commit the particular offence.

- PREPARATION is the device or arrangement of the means or measures necessary to complete

the offence.

- ATTEMPT is the third stage of a crime. The term ‘attempt’ here means direct movement toward
the commission of the crime after the preparations are made. It is very important that there must
be an attempt to commit a crime because it helps the judge of a court to convict the offender. If
there is no attempt then a judge cannot convict a offender because he cannot look into the heart
or mind or the individuals.

Elements of Crime

- There are two elements of crime :

A) Actus - Reus (An Act)

B) Mens Rea (Guilty Mind)

- Actus Reus is an act or commission that constitutes to a crime. Generally, omitting to

do something will not amount to acts res of an offence. The criminal law usually
punishes individuals for positive conduct and not for inaction.

- The components of actus reus are :

i) Unlawful acts/ omission

- An unlawful act is a conscious voluntary movement of muscles (e.g. hitting a person)
whereas an omission is generally a failure to act will not give rise to any liability unless the
law has imposed on the defendant to act and he had failed to carry out the duty.
For an example, a police officer may have a duty to act to prevent assault and if he fails to
act, he will be liable to be punished under the law.

ii) Consequences
- This is a prescribed result which flows from from an act. For example, where a person kills
the victim, the death of the victim would be the consequence of the crime. The
relationship between the act and the consequence is that it must have ‘caused’ the
prescribed consequence.

iii) Surrounding Circumstances

- These are facts that must exist at the time of the offence, for example, for rape, the consent
of the victim for sexual intercourse is a kind of surrounding circumstances. This does not
Necessarily depend on or result from the accused’s conduct.
- Mens Rea is one of the most important element of a crime.
- It implies that there must be a state of mind with respect to an actus reus (intention to act) in the
prescribed fashion.
- There must be a state of mind which means there must be a guilty mind of a person to commit
the crime.