K. C.
LAW COLLEGE
AFFILIATED TO MUMBAI UNIVERSITY
(CRIMINOLOGY)
CONCEPTS OF CRIME & ITS IMPORTANCE IN CRIMINOLOGY
ASSIGNMENT OF S. Y. LL. B SEMESTER- IV (APRIL- 2024)
Name: Kamalkishor G. Kotai
Roll No. (126) Div: (C)
S. Y. LL. B – Semester -IV
K. C Law College, University of Mumbai
Assignment (Topics)
CONCEPTS OF CRIME & ITS IMPORTANCE IN
CRIMINOLOGY
Kamalkishor G Kotai F. Y. LL. B. Semester IV, Roll No 126. Div. -C Year 2023-2024
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Introduction Concept of Crime and Criminology
Meaning of Criminology
Criminology is the systematic study of crime, criminals and the intricate web of factors
influencing criminal behaviour within society. This interdisciplinary field draws from
psychology, sociology, law, economics, biology and other sciences to explore the causes,
patterns and consequences of criminal activities. Criminologists aim to understand why
individuals engage in unlawful acts, whether driven by social, economic, psychological or
environmental factors. They also investigate the functioning of the criminal justice
system, including police, courts and corrections, seeking to improve its effectiveness and
fairness.
Definition of Crime
The word "CRIME" comes from the Latin word "KRIMOS," which means "TO ACCUSE."
Generally speaking, all societies/communities have certain norms, beliefs, and traditions that
are followed throughout day-to-day lives. Violation or denial of such beliefs, and traditions is
counted as a crime.
But legally speaking, "crime" is defined as any form of conduct that is declared to be socially
harmful in a state, as forbidden by law with punishment or imposing pain on culprit.
Or, the crime can be defined as "an intentional act or omission in violation of criminal law
committed without any Défense or justification and penalized by the law as felony or
misdemeanour."
1. Crime Defined by Cross and Janes
A legal wrong, remedy for which is punishment of the offender at the instance of the state
2. Crime Defined by Stephen (The Editor of Black Stone's Commentaries)
A crime is a violation of a right, considered in reference to the evil tendency of such violation
as regards the community at large
3. Crime Defined By Rafeale Garofalo
Crime is an act which offends the basic sentiments of "pity" and "probity".
4. Crime Defined by Halsbury
Crime is a unlawful act which is an offence against the public and the perpetrator of that act
is liable to legal punishment.
Ancient idea of Crime Existed In Very Crude Forms !
The Sumerians produced the earliest surviving written codes explaining idea of crime. The
Sumerians later issued other codes, including the "code of Lipit-Ishtar". This code, from the 20th
century BCE, contains some fifty articles which enlighten about ideas of crime ,followed by
Sumerians.
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Legal codes in Babylon, including the code of Hammurabi (c. 1790 BC), Mesopotamian society's
belief that law derived from the will of the gods. In the Sanskrit texts of Dharmaśāstra (1250
BC), issues such as legal and religious duties, code of conduct, penalties and remedies, etc. have
been discussed and formed one of the elaborate and earliest sources of legal code and crimes in
Indian subcontinent.
The Romans systematized law and applied their system across the Roman Empire. Again, the
initial rules of Roman law regarded assaults as a matter of private compensation. The most
significant Roman law concept involved dominion. The pater familias owned all the family and
its property (including slaves); the pater enforced matters involving interference with any
property. The Commentaries of Gaius written between 130 and 180 AD on the Twelve Tables
treated furtum (in modern parlance: "theft") as a tort.
Even though Rome abandoned its Britannic provinces around 400 AD, the Germanic
mercenaries—who had largely become instrumental in enforcing Roman rule in Britannia—
acquired ownership of land there and continued to use a mixture of Roman and Teutonic Law,
with much written down under the early Anglo-Saxon kings. But only when a more centralized
English monarchy emerged following the Norman invasion, and when the kings of England
attempted to assert power over the land and its peoples, led to emergence of modern concept
of a crime, which was including Crime , as a matter not only limited, as an offence against the
"individual", but also as a wrong committed against the "state".
Early Concept of Crime
Emile Dukhein in his treatise "crime as normal phenomenon" to further add that "a society
composed of person with angelic qualities would not be free from violations of the norms of
that society. In fact, crime is a constant phenomenon changing with social transformation. And
crime is a necessary feature of every society as it is a fundamental condition of social
organization. Different groups have different and often incompatible interests in society which
give rise to conflicts which eventually result in the incidence of crime."
Primitive societies did not identify any distinctions between the law of crime and torts, but they
identified only "laws of wrongs." Before the 10th century in England, English societies were used
to identify "crimes" with mere "torts" as family issues was center of focus of lives of English
societies. Mere offering a "Compensation" as a "bot" was enough for "wrong doer" or "criminal"
to get away with all of his /her sins or crimes or wrong doings.
From 1000 to 1200 AD,
there was a preponderance of system of "ordeals by fire or by water" to establish the guilt or
innocence of the culprit. This was due to religious dominance rising into societies all over the
world and superstitions of people, who have firmed belief in religious ideas to govern their lives
and ideas of Crime or Sins by following superstitious ideas attached to it.
When the time keep moving on and rise of more logic and reasoning in society, and King took
central charge to main social order and assume proper responsibility for apprehending offenders
as a duty of King or State, then this eventually led to development of "Criminology as separate
branch" of human knowledge.
12th Century to 16th Century: Idea of Sin and Crime
Though there is superficial resemblance be seen between sin and crime, the idea keeps growing
in societies that sins and crime are different entities from each other.
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Sin committed by sinner is punished by God but criminal is punished by state. Sin may not result
in direct harm or injury to others, by crime is necessarily attached with direct or indirect injury
to other, let how much miniscule it may be. So, for sin remedy may be penance observed by self,
but crime must be subject of state for punishing the criminal through court of law.
This idea came from the "idea of common law," and the earliest conception of a criminal act
involved events of such major significance that the "state" had to usurp the usual functions of
the civil tribunals, and direct a special law against the perpetrator. All the earliest English
criminal trials involved wholly extraordinary and arbitrary courts without any settled law to
apply.
So, when the idea of Crime taken center place for state, then obviously it resulted in
development of idea of Criminology, too. Criminology is basically that branch of knowledge that
concerns such conducts of human behavior that is prohibited or injurious to society and its
order. Basically, Criminology is a socio-legal study of human behavior to identify logic, reason
and preventative measures for Crime.
18th and 19th Century: Emergence of Criminology
In Europe, especially France and Italy the 18th century era witnesses a miraculous reorientation
for looking at "idea of Crime" and "development of Criminology. Perhaps this was the result of
the arrival of the Renaissance Age in Europe. Old ideas, such as crime as the result of divine
displeasure, had been abandoned. And Criminal responsibility is fixed over culprit. During this
time period, the study of crime started with new thinking based on reasoning and logic.
This led to the abdication of old theocratic ideas of crimes and the acceptance of new ideas that
refuted the divine rights of Kings.
The development of the idea that the "state" dispenses justice in a court only with identification
of idea of Sovereignty of State !
Establishment of Criminology in 20th Century
Italina Criminologist Garafalo linked the "morality of society" with "crime", observing that "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 it possessed by a community"
Due to change into ideas of world and social interactions at long distances, Crime rates all over
Europe and even entire world keep escalating. Variations of social status and conditioning
promoted more crimes in society all over the world. With the advent of dynamic society, the
reason for more disharmony, conflict and cultural deviations further lead to changing into
traditions and social control mechanism. This added up incidences of crime. Eventually, this
forced all States, Kings to establish proper courts, Appellate courts and identify vicarious
liabilities of every element of the society, and to pen down proper and logical Laws which can
govern the society rationally and order in society can be remain well maintained.
Development of Idea of "Crime without Victim"
With rise in crime rates, idea in 20th century keep growing leading to identification of "Crime
without Victim", where such offences such as, drunkenness, begging, soliciting, homosexuality,
bestiality be counted as crime, even though these acts are not resulting into direct harm to
others. But such type of "Victimless Crimes" depends upon morality and economic interest of
society and state. So, there is no surprise, that many countries such as -Britain, India -has
removed drunkenness and homosexuality from the list of "Victimless crimes".
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This shows how the idea of crime is so versatile and dynamic and how with passage of time, and
with the development of needs of society and reasoning abilities of society, it keeps
changing. Yesterday's idea of crime is today's matters of laughter and Today's idea of crime can
be tomorrow's matter of normalcy.
Summing Up the Generalized Concept of Crime
• Crime and Social policy are interrelated and the idea of crime deeply based on ideas of social
values, norms accepted by society and behaviors patterns of members of society
• Content and concept of Crime changes as per norms and ideas of society, what crime today may
not be crime for tomorrow and may be counted as normal behavior by society.
• Crime is relative terms, as what is wrong at one place may be right or acceptable at another
place. Crime is mere reflection of denied social behavior by society to let society keep running
and maintained.
• Laws formulated by society help to measure the moral turpitude of society by understanding
what is permissible in society and what is not permissible.
• The emergence of the idea of crime and criminological knowledge has been through a definite
process of evolution with evolution of society at the level of combined consciousness.
• In modern time, emphasis has shifted from crime to criminals, as the "current idea of crime" -
individualization of crime is focused, identifying it circumstances and its substance, rather than
making crime as generalized phenomenon for all criminals
Classification of Crime, in Modern Times
Crudely speaking, Crime can be categorized into 3 types
• personal crime
• occupational crime
• public order crime
But identifying their legal caricature and legal definitions crimes into any corner of world can be
generally categorized as,
• Legal crimes- these are traditional and more personal type of crimes, such as theft, robbery,
rape, assault, murder
• Political Crimes/offences- these are more organizational or national level crimes such as -
running underground anti national organizations, or groups, harming to current established
polity and social order
• Economic crimes- these include "typical white-collar crimes", crimes related to tax evasion,
smuggling, prostitution, gambling
• Social Crimes; - these are morality related crime as per idea of morality existing into community,
such as - banning or allowance of gay marriages, abortions, drunkenness in public places
• Miscellaneous crimes- All other crimes which are not included to above mentioned categories
are included under this heading which deals with traffic rule violations, local land or property
violations, Comsumer protections
Characteristics of Crime
External consequences: - Crime always has an injurious effect at a personal level, social level
emotional or mental level always, let it be directly or indirectly
Act (Actus Rea): - there must always an act or omission to constitute a crime must be present,
mere intention of committing crime must not be counted as "Crime"
Mens Rea (Guilty mind): - there must be presence of guilty mind or intention of committing
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crime, with criminal act, then only idea of crime commencement is concluded, for example, just
due to rash driving if accident happened, then it is not crime but mere matter of negligence and
accident, but if there are intentions to crush particular person in the mind of driver, then this is
called as "murder" and not mere "accident"
Prohibited Act: - as per necessity all states declare some "Act" as prohibited, to prevent future
crime, here "guilty mind "is not necessary but mere commencement of such act is enough to
identify that act as crime for example, high speed driving after getting too much drunk
Punishment: - It is not mere enough to identify some act as crime, but necessary punishment
for committing crime is also necessary otherwise, entire exercise of identifying "Crime" will be
mere waste and law will be mere joke for the people and society
Criminology - Its Nature and Scope
Professor W A Bonger preferred to study theoretical criminology under the following dimensions:
1. Criminal Anthropology
2. Criminal Sociology
3. Criminal Psychology
4. Criminal Psycho-neuro-pathology
5. Penology
References :
1. Kramer (1971: 4)
2. Driver and Mills (1952–55) and Skaist (1994)
3. The Babylonian laws. Driver, G. R. (Godfrey Rolles), 1892–1975; Miles, John C. (John Charles), Sir,
1870–1963. Eugene, Oregon: Wipf & Stock Pub. April 2007. ISBN 978-1556352294. OCLC
320934300.
4. Anuradha Jaiswal, Criminal Justice Tenets of Manusmriti – A Critique of the Ancient Hindu Code
5. Garner, Richard, 1953- (1987). Law & society in classical Athens. New York: St. Martin's Press.
ISBN 0312008562. OCLC 15365822.
6. Attenborough: 1963
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