Tuesday, March 5, 2013

Defining Crime (Criminology Studies)

Crime is an act which violates criminal law or norms of a society and is subject to punishment.

From the above definition we can see that crime can also be defined in legal and sociological aspects. Under its legal aspect Paul. W. Tappan defined it as,

"crime is an intentional act or omission in violation of criminal law, committed without any defense or justification and sanctioned by the state as felony or misdemeanor"

on its social basis Raffael Garofalo defined it as,

"crime is an immoral and harmful act which offends two altruistic sentiments of common people, namely sentiments of probity and pity"

people become sympathetic(pity) to the victim of any crime and develop a sense of justice(probity) when property rights are violated.

According to Redcliff Brown,

"crime is violation of usage which requires the use of penal sanction"

more correct definition which suits criminology is given by Stephen,

"Crime means an act which is both forbidden by law and revolving to the moral sentiments of the society"

after discussing all these aspects of the definitions we can say that, Crime is form of conduct which is declared to be socially harmful in a state and which is forbidden by law under pain of punishment.

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