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A crime is an act which violates a law of a government, nation-state, or jurisdiction, for which there is no successful defense. According to Western jurisprudence, there must be a simultaneous concurrence of both actus reus ("guilty action") and mens rea ("guilty mind") for a crime to have been committed; except in crimes of strict liabilityStrict liability is a legal doctrine in tort law that makes a person responsible for the damages caused by their actions regardless of culpability (fault) or mens rea''. Strict liability often applies to those engaged in hazardous or inherently dangerous. In order for prosecution, some laws require proof of causalityThe philosophical concept of Causality or Causation refers to the set of all particular "causal" or "cause-and-effect" relations. The Differentia (distinguishing properties/characteristics) of Causality which all causal relations have in common: The relat, relating the defendantIn Common law, a defendant is any person who is required to answer the complaint of a plaintiff in a civil suit or any person who has been named in a criminal information or criminal complaint and stands accused of violating a criminal statute. A defendan's actions to the criminal event in question. In addition, some laws require that attendant circumstanceAttendant circumstances are a legal concept which Black's Law Dictionary defines as the " facts surrounding an event. With some crimes, it must be proven that certain events occurred (or certain facts are true) in order for a defendant to be found guilty.s have occurred, in order for a crime to have occurred. Also, in order for a crime to be prosecuted, corpus delictiCorpus delicti (from Latin: body of crime ) term from Western jurisprudence which refers to the principle that it must be proven that a crime has occurred, before a person can be tried for the crime. For example, a person cannot be tried for larceny, unle (or " proofThe word proof can mean: originally, a test assessing the validity or quality of something. a rigorous, compelling argument, including: a logical argument or a mathematical proof (see also proof theory). a legal proof. a large accumulation of scientific e of a crime") must be established.
A crime can be the action of violating or breaking the law, having the intentionThe word intention admits a variety of meanings: Purpose is thoughtful and deliberate goal-directedness thus "intentional" behavior. In the philosophy of mind, intentionality is "aboutness", i. an intentional state of mind is one that is "about" something of doing so or helping others in the process; in some systems the simple association for organising a crime is punished, even if the fact is not verified and usually for many crimes the attempt too is punished, even if the crime is not completed (in California, e.g., the punishment can be half of that for the crime itself [1]). Crimes are viewed as offenses against society, and as such are punished by the state. They can be scholastically distinguished, depending on the passive subject of the crime (the victim), or on the offended interest, in crimes against:
Or they can be distinguished depending on the related punishment (then, on the degree of offense that the forbidden behaviour caused), in delicts and violations.
In general, in most western systems, the definition of a crime requires the existing intention of committing it (voluntas necandi) in the author, therefore it is usually not punished when this intention is missing or when the author has not a complete mental sanity or is under a certain age.
In many systems the penal responsibility is personal, and the retroactivity of the penal law is forbidden so that no one can be punished for a fact that the penal law didn't already describe as a crime at the moment in which the crime was committed.
The definition of a crime generally reflects the current attitudes prevalent in a society. For example, possession of drugs was not always a crime, while the Prohibition Era made alcohol illegal.
Matters related to criminal behavior in society are studied in the field of sociology on the sub-field of criminology, and a person who studies this is called a criminologist. The mental state and acuity of criminals is assessed by psychologists, especially in cases wherein the insanity defense is being utilized.
The first civilizations had codes of law, though these codes were not always recorded. The first known written codes were written by the ancient Sumerians, and it was probably their king Ur-Nammu (reigning on Ur in the 21st century BC) the first legislator of which we received a formal system in 32 articles; it has to be recalled that this is not among the eldest laws, since not all the ancient laws are penal rules. In the antiquity, in fact, codes mostly contained both civil and penal rules together. Sumerians however later issued other codes as the one known as "code of Lipit-Istar" (last king of the 3rd dynasty of Ur, Isin - 20th century BC). This code contains some 50 articles and has been reconstructed by the comparison among several sources.
In Babylon the code of Esnunna before, and the code of Hammurabi (one of the richest ones of ancient times) after, were used and reflected society's belief that law was derived from the will of the gods.
Similarly, some codes of conduct of religious origins or reference have been included in penal codes, forbidden behaviours resulting in real crimes in the states ruled by theocracy even in more recent times.