Crime:

The word crime is derived from the Latin word “crīmen” meaning "charge".In 13th century
English crime meant "sinfulness.” A crime is defined as any act that is contrary to legal code or
laws. In other words, Crime or Offence is an illegal act or omission prohibited by or punishable
at law and for which a special procedure is provided at law to punish the offender.

Definition of Crime by Different Jurists:

According to Austin:
“A wrong which is pursued at the discretion of the injured party and his representatives is a
civil injury; a wrong which is pursued by the sovereign or his subordinates is a crime.”

According to Stephen:
“Crime is an act forbidden by law and which is at the same time revolting to the moral
sentiments of the society.”

According to Bentham:
“Offenses are whatever the legislature has prohibited for good or for bad reasons.”

Types of Crimes:
There are different types of crimes.

Crimes Against Persons:

Crimes against persons involve direct harm or threat of harm to an individual. Examples include
assault, homicide, kidnapping, and domestic violence.

Crimes Against Property:

Property crimes involve the theft of property without bodily harm, such as burglary, larceny,
auto theft, and arson. Like personal crimes, members of historically marginalized groups are
arrested for these crimes more than others.

Hate Crimes:

Hate crimes are crimes against persons or property that are committed while invoking
prejudices of race, gender or gender identity, religion, disability, sexual orientation, or ethnicity.
Crimes Against Morality:

Crimes against morality are also called victimless crimes because there is no complainant or
victim. Prostitution, illegal gambling, and illegal drug use are all examples of victimless crimes.

White-Collar Crimes:

White-collar crimes are crimes committed by people of high social status who commit their
crimes in the context of their occupation. This includes embezzling (stealing money from one’s
employer), insider trading, tax evasion, and other violations of income tax laws.White-collar
crimes generally generate less concern in the public mind than other types of crime, however,
in terms of total dollars, white-collar crimes are even more consequential for society.

Organized Crimes:

Organized crime is committed by structured groups typically involving the distribution and sale
of illegal goods and services. Many people think of the Mafia when they think of organized
crime, but the term can refer to any group that exercises control over large illegal enterprises
(such as the drug trade, illegal gambling, prostitution, weapons smuggling, or money
laundering).

Elements of Crime:

The seven elements of a crime, also known as the “criminal elements,” are the essential
components that must be present for an act to be considered a crime. These elements vary
slightly depending on the jurisdiction but generally include the following:

1. Actus reus: This Latin term refers to the “guilty act” or the physical act of committing a
crime. It can also refer to an omission or failure to act required by law.
2. Mens rea: This Latin term refers to the “guilty mind” or the intent or knowledge of
wrongdoing necessary to commit a crime. It can also refer to a reckless or negligent
state of mind sufficient to establish criminal liability.
3. Concurrence: This element requires that the actus reus and mens rea co-occur. In other
words, the intent to commit the crime must be present when the act is committed.
4. Causation: This element requires that the actus reus must have caused the harm or
injury that is the basis of the crime.
5. Harm: This element requires the actus reus to have caused damage or injury to another
person, property, or society.
6. Legality: This element requires that the act must be prohibited by law. A person cannot
be punished for a show that is not illegal.
 7. Punishment: This element requires that there must be a prescribed punishment for the
crime. A person cannot be punished for a crime that does not have a prescribed penalty.

Impacts of Crime on Society:

Most often, crime had a detrimental impact on society in terms of its economy, social structure,
and political climate. The following are the consequences of crime on contemporary society: –

o Hinders societal development

Crime frequently impedes society’s development. For instance, the rise in crime rates forces the
government to allocate resources to crime reduction rather than investing them in profitable
areas. Building jails, buying tools to fight crime and paying those working in the criminal justice
system all cost enormous sums of money. In this approach, crime prevention costs the
government more, which slows down social advancement.

o It leads to the killing of people

In countries where crime rates are rising, there are more fatalities each year. Crime directly
results in death through violence, such as the terrorist attack on the Pentagon and the World
Trade Center on September 11, 2001, in the United States, which left about 2996 people dead
and over 6000 injured.

o The expense of living in society rises as a result

The cost of living in society also rises as a result of crimes being committed there. This occurs in
several ways, including the costs required by society to prevent crimes, investigate and punish
criminal activity, and maintain those who have committed crimes behind bars. For instance, the
criminal must be imprisoned after being charged. Criminals require pricey housing, clothing,
and food.

o Crime increases Fear

The relationship between fear and crime is more complicated than it seems to be at first sight
fear is partly unrelated to actual victimization. Fear of crime can contribute to lowering the
quality of people's lives as much as crime does, and fear can thus be as great a problem
as crime itself.

o Generates Stress

People worry about their safety, the safety of their loved ones, all the time. It's a fairly normal
part of life, but it can be problematic when increases in crime cause a person to worry all the
time. Safety threats can be especially worrisome and stressful, more so when they hit close to
home. Prolonged stress can cause health issues and disrupt a person's life, regardless of what
the source is. When something like crime rates cause stress throughout a community, those
effects are amplified and can impact the functionality of the community.

Suggestion to Curb the Crime:

1. Help Victims of Crime

There is far too little support for victims of crime, even though it is the most obvious place to
start. Prior victimization , of a person or a place , is the top predictor of future
victimization. Supporting people who have been victimized from being victimized again —
through social supports and target-hardening , has enormous potential for positive change.

2. Reduce Demand for Law Enforcement

A central reason why law enforcement does not prevent more crime or solve more crimes is
that they are too busy doing things that accomplish neither objective. If the police were called
less often for unproductive reasons, there would be less under-policing and less over-policing
as well. If cities and towns set the explicit goal of having people call the police less often, law
enforcement would be more efficient at taking on the tasks that remain.

3. Fixing Distressed Spaces

There is a wide body of evidence that shows that places poison people more routinely than
people poison places. Crime does not result from “areas” of the “inner city” being high risk, but
rather from a few very small, very bad places. Concentrated
efforts to improve contagious places can build resiliency across neighborhoods.

4. Making Crime Attractors Less Appealing

Certain places attract and generate crime — schools, the built environment and bars being at
the top of the list. More often than not, careful planning and implementation of best practices
in situational crime prevention can reduce the harms they unintentionally generate and, in the
case of schools and transit, unlock their potential for guardianship.

5. Scientific Supports for Law Enforcement

Police in the United States would benefit from increased reliance on civilians in two realms:
translating scientific evidence into practice, and increasing their reliance on civilian
analysts to study local policing practices. In particular, if law enforcement was aided by more
civilian analysts who were better trained, crime would be reduced while the footprint of
policing was reduced.

6. Improving the Job Market and Job Training

The relationship between jobs and crime is far more complex than in the popular imagination
— higher national-level unemployment rates, for example, do not seem to increase violence.
But targeted programs can have large effects. Integrating social and emotional skills
training into employment training for young people has solid evidence of effectiveness as does
employment planning for people returning from prison and transitional jobs for high risk
people.

7. Facilitate Neighborhood Non-Profits

In his excellent book ”Uneasy Peace,” Professor Patrick Sharkey reports on a study that found
that for each 10 additional nonprofits in a given city, the violent crime rate is reduced by 14%
(in the study period between 1990 and 2013). It should come as no surprise that access to more
and better services has positive effects. Local government can aid the development of these
local assets by providing funding for hyper-local community projects.

8. Make Jails and Prison Less Criminogenic

We have overwhelmingly designed our jails and prisons to prevent people from gaining the
skills to work and maintain their sobriety when they go home, and cut them off from their most
crime-reducing assets, their family and friends. Small investments in humanity yield large
returns when jails and prisons are not designed to produce more crime.

9. Better Prepare People to Return Home from Prison

People returning from prison need specific supports to facilitate a successful transition 82% of
people released from prison are rearrested within 10 years. And the solutions are simple
leaving facilities with an ID, prescriptions, a place to stay, a way to get started. A goal without a
plan is a wish people should leave prison with a plan and the supports to implement that plan.

10. Fund Community-Based Violence Interruption

A growing body of evidence finds that credible messengers — individuals with lived experience
— coupled with psychosocial services can prevent retaliatory violence and repeat victimization.
But this is a new sector and will need time and space to learn and grow.

11. Use Technology to Reduce Violence

Professor Graham Farrell argues convincingly that increases in security technology (such as
engine immobilizers and cameras) in the 1990s were the only universal explanation for the
universal decline in crime. There is much more that can be done using technology without
imposing on civil liberties: text message reminders for court and probation appearances,
databases to maintain records on police officers with histories of abuse and anti-crime features
on ordinary consumer products are just the start.

12. Tackle the Causes and Consequences of Poverty

Poverty drives crime and violence in numerous ways beyond a simple lack of income,
through weakened social bonds. A number of important policies have been successfully piloted
but not fully implemented by state and local government. These are the big-ticket items — child
poverty tax credits, whole-school anti-bullying programs, expanding Medicaid — that have the
biggest crime reduction benefits. But the benefits outweigh the costs for dozens of policies and
programs.

13. Fix Long-Standing Problems

Problems often persist because they have high costs, a lack of immediacy and declining political
constituency — but these perpetual problems are often the key risk condition causing crime in
a place to persist. Unhealthy homes, lead paint and pipes, and under-resourced foster care all
promote crime.

14. Shorten the Reach of the Criminal Justice System

Too many financial burdens are imposed on people with low risk to public safety, creating a
cycle of debt and incarceration, the latter which increases violence through stigma, criminal
capital accumulation and a disruption of social bonds. Removing those conditions by
clearing old warrants and convictions, reducing toxic fines and fees and ending poverty
traps would prevent crime.

15. Help Those with Substance-Use Disorders

In the 1990s and 2000s, with trepidation, the justice system began treating substance-use
disorders as a disease rather than a crime. Expansion in the broadest of these interventions –
problem-solving courts and in-prison substance use treatment — largely ended more than a
decade ago. Many extremely useful ideas have been piloted — trauma-informed
care, motivational interviewing, treating withdrawal in prison — but few were ever taken fully
to scale. Those foundations are ready-made to build upon.

16. Support Programs for High-Risk Young People and Families

A lot of criminology is concerned with bending the criminal trajectory curve — to keep
adolescents from accelerating their delinquency or failing to desist as they age — and a huge
body of scholarship has contributed to numerous model programs. From prenatal programs,
to social and emotional learning, to programs for high-risk adolescents, there is a tremendous
base of knowledge.

17. Education

Improving education is its own crime-reducing category, but schools can facilitate crime
reduction outside of schools. Reducing food insecurity, humanizing discipline and improving
the safety of the school commute benefit everyone.

18. Housing
Like education, housing is its own category beyond the scope of this essay. But there are
housing solutions with specific crime-reducing benefits: permanent, supportive
housing; transitional housing for young people leaving homelessness; and housing programs
specifically for people who cycle through emergency services.

19. Policy and Law

There are any number of laws and regulations that could be tweaked to meaningfully reduce
crime and victimization. For example, higher taxes that specifically target the overuse of
criminogenic products like guns and alcohol have been shown to reduce excess demand.

20. Stop the Proliferation of Firearms

The link between firearms and violence is ironclad — the more guns, the more crime. More
guns explain much of the difference in rates of violence between the U.S and peer nations.
Fixing violence in the U.S. without addressing the gun problem, which is to say ensuring fewer
potentially dangerous people have easy access to weapons, is embracing half-measures.