CHAPTER 2

CRIMES AND CRIMINALS

In the study of criminology, it is important that the basic concepts regarding crimes and criminals are understood because
basically that is what criminology is about. Since crimes are committed by persons, these persons must also be studied.
Simply said, crimes will not exist without criminals.

Crimes
The terms crime is a generic term which refers to all acts that violate the law. According to the Philippine Law
Dictionary, crime is an act committed or omitted in violation of a public law.

Another definition is crime is an act committed or omitted in violation of a public law forbidding or commanding it

There is a difference between an act committed and an act omitted. An act committed refers to crimes of commission.
There is a crime of commission when the act performed is in violation of a law forbidding it. On the other hand, an act
omitted refers to a crime of omission. It is a crime of omission when a person failed to perform an act that is commanded by
law.

Crimes are defined by criminal or penal laws. Criminal laws explicitly state what actions are prohibited, what actions are
required to be done and provides for the penalties or punishments to be imposed in case of violation of the laws. Without
laws that prohibit the act, the act cannot be called a crime. This is the essence of the Latin principle, nullum crimen nulla
poena sine lege. Translated in English, it says, there is neither crime nor punishment without a law.

TRIANGLE OF CRIME/ELEMENTS OF CRIME

The triangle of crime is a graphical representation of the elements of a crime. The three elements are desire,
capability and opportunity. These three elements must be present in a given situation before a crime may be committed. In
the absence of one, there can be no crime.

The element of desire refers to the wanting of the person to commit the crime. A person would only commit the crime if he
decides he wants to do it. It may be because of the profit he will gain from it, or because of the satisfaction he may derive
from it. Whatever reason the offender may have, the offender must first decide that he wants or he desires to commit the
offense.

Capability refers to the ability or the means of the offender to commit the crime. It includes skills, methods and tools that
would enable the offender to perform the act of committing the crime. An offender who does not have the capability would
not be able to do it.

Finally, opportunity refers to the physical possibility for crime to be committed. It is the chance that the offender must have
to commit the crime. Just like that popular saying, “right place, right time”, the offender waits or creates the right timing for
the commission of the crime.

Of the three elements, opportunity is what is being eliminated in all crime prevention activities.

Classification of Crimes
Crimes are classified into two (2) categories: legal classifications and criminological classifications. Both legal and
criminological classifications are further classified into its sub-categories.

Crimes are classified into two (2) categories:

Legal classification
Criminological classification
CRIMES

LEGAL CRIMINOLOGICAL

CLASSIFICATION CLASSIFICATION
LEGAL CLASSIFICATION OF CRIMES
1. ACCORDING TO LAW VIOLATED:
A. FELONY – violation of the Revised Penal Code (RPC)
B. OFFENSE – law violated is a special penal law
C. INFRACTION – violation of a city or municipal ordinances.
2. CLASSIFICATION OF CRIMES ACCORDING TO THE MANNER OF COMMITTING THE CRIME:
 Intentional Felonies – Committed by means of deceit.
 Culpable Felonies – Where the wrongful act result from imprudence (lack of foresight), negligence (lack
of skill).

3. CLASSIFICATION OF CRIMES ACCORDING TO THE STAGE IN THE COMMISSION:

 Consummated Stage – when all the elements necessary for its execution and accomplishment are
present.
 Frustrated Stage – when the offender has performed all acts of execution which will produce the felony
as a consequence but which nevertheless, do not produce the felony by reason of causes independent
of the will of the perpetrator.
 Attempted Stage – the offender commences the commission of the felony directly by overt acts and does
not perform all the acts of execution because of some reasons other than his own spontaneous
desistance.

4. CLASSIFICATION OF CRIMES ACCORDING TO PLURALITY:

1. Simple Crime - it is a single act constituting only one offense.
2. Complex Crime - it is a single act constituting two or more grave felonies, or when the act is a necessary
means for committing the other.
Example: Robbery with homicide
Robbery with Rape
5. CLASSIFICATION OF CRIMES ACCORDING TO GRAVITY:
 Grave Felonies – Those felonies which the law imposes capital penalty and those with afflictive penalties
(Prision Mayor – Death).
 Less Grave Felonies – those with correctional penalties (1month 1 day – 6 years).
 Light Felonies – Those which the law imposes a penalty of Arresto Menor (1 day to 1month) and/ or a
fine of P200.00.
6. CLASSIFICATION OF CRIMES ACCORDING TO THE NATURE OF THE ACT:
 Mala in se - acts that are inherently or naturally bad or evil.
 Example killing another person or taking something that does not belong to you.
 Mala prohibita - acts that are prohibited only because there are laws forbidding such acts.
 Example: traffic violations
 Smoking in non-smoking areas
CRIMINOLOGICAL CLASSIFICATION OF CRIMES
1. CLASSIFICATION OF CRIMES ACCORDING TO RESULTS OF THE CRIME:
 Acquisitive Crimes - if the offender gained something, material or otherwise, by committing the crime.
 E.g. Robbery or theft - the offender is able to gain something, that is the object he stole.
 Destructive Crimes - if the crime resulted in destruction, damage or even death.
 E.g. Crimes of arson, murder and homicide. - it can destruct or gives damage.
2. CLASSIFICATION OF CRIMES ACCORDING TO THE TIME OR PERIOD OF THE COMMISSION OF THE CRIME:
 Seasonal Crimes – those that are committed only at a certain period of the year.
 E.g. Violation of election laws can only be committed during election season,
Violation of tax laws are mostly caught during that period of the year when taxes are required to
be filed.
 Situational Crimes – those that are committed only when given the situation conducive to its commission of crime,
meaning, there is opportunity to commit it.
  E.g. Theft, such as pick-pocketing is very common in crowded areas. Robbery can easily be committed
when there is nobody in the house to guard it. Physical injuries can happen when a group of people are
having a drinking session in a public place, such as beer houses, videoke houses, where other groups who
are also drunk are present. These chances of having fights in such places are higher.

3. CLASSIFICATION OF CRIMES ACCORDING TO THE LENGTH OF TIME OF THE COMMISSION OF THE CRIME:
 Episodial Crimes – crimes that are committed by a series of acts in a lengthy space of time or much longer
amount of time.
 Serious Illegal Detention or Kidnapping
 Instant Crimes – those that are committed in the shortest possible time.
 E.g. Theft

4. CLASSIFICATION OF CRIMES ACCORDING TO PLACE OR LOCATION:

 Static Crimes – crimes that are committed only in one place
 E.g. Theft and Robbery
 Continuing Crimes – crimes that are committed in several places.
 E.g. Crime of Abduction

5. CLASSIFICATION OF CRIMES ACCORDING TO THE USE OF MENTAL FACULTIES:

 Rational Crimes – those that are committed with intent. (The offender is capable of knowing what he is doing and
understanding the consequences of his actions. His mental condition is normal just like any average person.)
 Irrational Crimes – those that are omitted by offenders who do not know the nature of their acts. (the offender is
one who is suffering from any form of mental insanity, disorder or abnormality, the offender cannot be said to know
what he is doing and does not appreciate the results of his action. The offender is not capable of understanding
the crime he committed.)

6. CLASSIFICATION OF CRIMES ACCORDING TO THE TYPE OF OFFENDER:

 White Collar Crimes – those that are committed by persons of responsibility and of upper socio-economic class in
the course of their occupational activities.
 E.g. Insurance fraud, medical malpractice for medical practitioners and falsification of documents.
 Blue Collar Crimes – crimes committed by ordinary professionals to maintain their livelihood.
 E.g. Pick-pocketing, snatching and other petty thefts.

7. CLASSIFICATION OF CRIMES ACCORDING TO THE STANDARD LIVING:

 Upper World Crimes – those committed by individuals belonging to the upper class of the society.
 Under World Crimes – those committed by lower or under privilege class of society.

CLASSIFICATION OF CRIMINALS

1. CLASSIFICATION OF CRIMINALS ACCORDING TO ETIOLOGY:

Acute Criminals - one who violates a criminal law because of the impulse or fit of passion.
Chronic Criminals - one who commits crime in consonance with deliberate thinking.
Neurotic Criminals - one who is afflicted with a mental disorder and such mental disorder is the one that
causes him to commit a crime.
Normal Criminals - a person who commits crimes because he looks up to, or idolizes, people who are
criminals.

2. CLASSIFICATION OF CRIMINALS ACCORDING TO TYPE OF OFFENDER:

Ordinary Criminal – the lowest form of criminal in a criminal career
Organized Criminals – one who associates with other criminals.
Professional Criminal – one with high degree of skill in committing crimes.

3. CLASSIFICATION OF CRIMINALS ACCORDING TO CRIMINAL ACTIVITIES:

Professional Criminals - a criminal who earns his living through criminal activities
 Situational Criminals - a person who got involved in a criminal act because the situation presented itself.
Habitual Criminals - a person who repeatedly commits criminal acts for different reasons.
Accidental Criminals - a person who “accidentally violated the law due to some circumstances beyond his
control.

CRIME STATISTICS
- is the measures of the level or amount of crimes. To estimate the nature of crime in the Philippines, criminologists and
researchers primarily rely on the National Crime Reporting System (NCRS), the data compiled by the National Police
Prevention and Coordination Service, which measures crimes through reports made by the police and other law
enforcement agencies.

- In the study of crimes, it is important to have records of the different crimes committed, their number, the specific period of
time and specific places where they are committed. These data would help in identifying which crimes area likely to be
committed at specific places and at what times or periods are crimes at their most number of occurrences. The compilation
of all these data is called crime statistics.

Crime statistics uses the terms index crimes and non-index crimes in classifying crimes.
a. Index Crime- are crimes which are serious in nature and which occur with sufficient frequency and regularity such that
they can serve as an index to the crime situation in the Philippines, we consider only the actual crimes of murder,
homicide, physical injury (serious and less serious), robbery, theft, and rape.

b. Non- index Crime – Crimes against persons (parricide/infanticide, maltreatment, kidnapping); crimes against property
(estafa and falsification, malicious mischief and damage to property); crimes against morals and order (prostitution,
vagrancy, alarm and scandal, assault/resistance to authority, corruption of public official, gambling, slander and libel,
threat and coercion and trespassing), crimes against chastity (abduction, seduction, lascivious acts) and other crimes
(illegal possession of firearms, explosives and ammunition, concealment of deadly weapons, smuggling, carnapping
and prohibited drugs)

Total Crime Volume = Index + Non-index Crimes.

Average Monthly Crime Rate = [(Total Crime Volume/12 months) x 100,000 population]/population of region or
country.

Crime Solution Efficiency = (Crime Solved/Crime Volume) x 100%.

OTHER CLASSIFICATIONS OF CRIMES

c. Crimes by Imitation - crimes committed by merely duplicating those done by others.

d. Crimes by Passion – crimes committed because of the fit of great emotion.
e. Service Crimes – crimes committed by rendering service to satisfy the desire of another.
f. Traditional Crime- committed every now and then
g. Crimes Due to Social Change- poverty crimes ex. Prostitution
h. Emergency Crime- committed to take advantage of an abnormal situation
i. Victimless Crime- act committed by consenting persons in private, there is no intended victim.
j. Cyber Crimes/ Computer Crimes –
Computer crime – Refers to any crime that involves a computer and a network, where the computers may or may not
have played an instrumental part in the commission of the crime (Moore 2000).
Netcrime refers, more precisely, to criminal exploitation of the Internet. Issues surrounding this type of crime have
become high-profile, particularly those surrounding hacking, copyright infringement, child porn, and child grooming.
There are also problems of privacy when confidential information is lost or intercepted, lawfully or otherwise.
Spam – Or the unsolicited sending of bulk email for commercial purposes, is unlawful to varying degrees. As applied
to email, specific anti-spam laws are relatively new, however limits on unsolicited electronic communications have
existed in some forms for some time.
I. IDENTIFY WHAT IS ASKED:
1. It refers to acts that transgress the law:
2. These determine whether an act is a crime or not, punishable or not:
3. This element of crime is within the control of potential victims or targets:
4. These are laws enacted by Congress:
5. It is the basis in classifying crimes according to gravity:
6. This government agency is responsible for the collection and recording of crime statistics:
7. It is the term used to refer to a child who is suspected or accused of committing a crime:
8. They are responsible for the creation of city and/or municipal ordinances:
9. He determines whether a person is a criminal, legally speaking:
10. This is the basis for classifying a criminal as rational or irrational:

II. DESCRIBE THE CRIME SITUATION IN YOUR PLACE OF RESIDENCE. INCLUDE THE FOLLOWING IN YOUR
DISCUSSION:

a) What is the general description of your neighborhood, as well as its residences?

b) Is crime a common occurrence in your neighborhood? If yes, what are the most common crimes committed?
c) What are the crime prevention effort being implemented by your barangay officials?