Formal and Informal Definitions of Crime

 

Social audiences often determine which behaviors will be defined as criminal. There are three basic types of social audiences: 1) the society-at-large; 2) the social control agency; and 3) the significant other. Definitions of crime are used by these social audiences to guide their reactions to various behaviors. It is possible for the same behavior to be defined differently at different levels. All three types of social audiences contribute to how crime is defined. Each type of audience also has a unique effect on the operation of the agencies designed to deal with offenders.

Society-at-large audiences are made up of groups that are concerned with crime because of their involvement in politics. Local, state, and national legislatures and political parties, activist organizations, and civic associations are typical of such groups. Many groups compete to establish the legal definitions of what constitutes a crime. They also influence which types of crime will get the most attention at a particular point in time. Social control agency audiences are made up of agency practitioners in criminal justice and related fields. A control agent is anyone with the power to change a person's legal status. Control agents come into contact with suspected and known offenders because of their employment. Significant-other audiences in criminal justice can be divided into two types:

1) people who are present during the commission of a criminal act; and

2) those whose opinions may influence the offender or control agent.

   Crime victims or "complainants" are a good example of the first type of such an audience while the parents and teachers of juveniles illustrate the second type. Like control agency audiences, significant others who witness a crime are often able to re-define it as noncriminal because they often follow subcultural norms rather than the requirements of the law.

Justice practitioners often presume that a significant other would not have called them unless some kind of crime had occurred. Because they are bureaucrats, control agents are likely to be more familiar with the person's records than with the individual. The file was created to justify and guide the processing of that person so its contents will stress the problem behavior rather than other personal traits. The term "looping" is used to describe this phenomenon.      

Looping occurs when a person's attempts to disprove a label are used to demonstrate the continued presence of that trait.The harder the person tries to disprove the label, the more convinced the practitioner is of its validity. Looping may occur with any type of audience but is most common in bureaucratic agencies due to their emphasis on recordkeeping and the narrowness of their focus that results from specialization.

 

 

 

 

Variant # 4 „Г”

 

TYPES OF LAW

 

Law is a set of rules created by a government to maintain social order so that life is reasonably safe and predictable. Law changes slowly but follows society's needs and circumstances in an attempt to reflect current ideas of justice. In modern societies, law governs the behavior of individuals, businesses, government agencies and other bodies. It strives to protect both the safety and the rights of individual citizens and social organizations.. Modern law differs from other types of social rules in four crucial ways. To properly serve modern society law must be: 1) highly specific; 2) formally legitimate; 3) stable; and 4) logically consistent. Laws must describe forbidden behaviors and legal duties in the most precise way possible. It is for this reason that a great deal of attention is given tо the precise wording of each law proposed in a legislature.

In the United States there are two basic types of law - civil and criminal. Civil law consists of regulations governing business dealings and personal obligations. It includes contract and real estate laws. It is primarily concerned with the control of property. Tort law is a sub-type of civil law concerned with private wrongs that result in injury or financial loss. Many crimes (e.g., drunk driving accidents) can also be defined as torts so offenders can be sued by the victim in civil court as well as prosecuted by the government in criminal court. Criminal trials are intended to establish guilt and assign punishment. Criminal laws define and punish public wrongs. The operation of criminal law is different from civil law in three major ways. First, criminal law requires more proof for conviction than does civil la' (i.e., guilt beyond a reasonable doubt). The rules that determine what evidence may introduced in court are much stricter in criminal trials than in civil ones for this reason also. Second, the state brings criminal charges and receives monetary payments (fine from the guilty person. In civil cases the injured person or business performs this role. Finally, civil penalties almost always center on the distribution of money or other property. Most crimes are punished with a loss of freedom or life. The division between criminal and civil law is rough and relatively recent.

Virtually all humans recognize some sort of natural law. Natural law is any philosophy concerning the nature of proper behavior and justice that is felt to be suitable in a rationally organized society. It is usually attributed to powers superior man or society (e.g.. God, nature) and stresses morality and logic. Common law often arises from natural law. It is a body of customs, traditions and prior decisions that are recognized as binding on a specific group of people and uses group traditions (e.g., religion) as its philosophical basis. It serves to unify tribal beliefs into a coherent legal system and provides more stability and consistency than does natural law.

 Neither Common law nor equity principles need to be written down (i.e., codified) in order to be effective. However, to meet the criteria for effective modern law, government authorities need to provide a logically organized, easily distributed and consistently worded set of rules for legal decision-making. The written decrees that fill this need are generally referred to as statutory laws. Statutory laws include both substantive criminal law and procedural law. Statutory law refers to the rules that are created by acts of legislatures and other governmental bodies. Substantive law is that part of the law which defines and regulates the rights and duties of persons. It includes not only criminal law, but also civil contract law, tort law, law of wills (i.e., probate law), etc. Procedural law, on the other hand, describes the proper methods of enforcing persons' rights or correcting their violation. It governs the behavior of the agencies and practitioners that carry out legal actions dealing with crime. Case law is used to fill in the gaps between the formal principle (written law) and the specific circumstances of concrete cases brought before a court by using court decisions to interpret and apply specific laws and principles. It consists of judicial interpretations of law supplied by appellate courts in written decisions.

Variant # 5 „Д”

ENGLISH COMMON LAW

 

American criminal law and legal procedures can be traced to the Babylonian Code of Hammurabi (2000 B.C.), the Mosaic Code of the Israelites (1200 B.C.), and the Twelve Tables of Rome. The code of Hammurabi is the oldest written legal code known to man. It was based on the principle of lex talionis or equivalent retaliation. Anglo-Saxon law arose from the traditions of the tribes that occupied the British isles in ancient times. It developed after the conquest of England by the French Normans in!066 AD. The Normans distrusted the Anglo-Saxons, but were reluctant to introduce too many new customs. The Normans accepted almost all of the Saxon legal system and appointed judges who were loyal to them but understood the local Anglo-Saxon traditions. These judges were assigned to territories established by the Normans that were called circuits and often included parts of two or more of the traditional tribal groups. These judges traveled through their circuits hearing legal cases. This is how the term circuit court originated. Circuit judges tried to apply the traditional rules of each tribal group to the legal cases that were brought before them. However, they often encountered cases that were not covered by the traditions of a particular group and/or cases where the proper application of the group's customs was unclear. In these situations they often applied traditions from neighboring kingdoms with which they were familiar, interpretations of Biblical principles or Roman-Norman rules to guide their decisions. This led to a homogenization of Anglo-Saxon traditions and the introduction of some Norman legal ideas that had originated in Roman law.

Restitution to the victim was the preferred method of resolving disputes under Anglo-Saxon tradition. Each type of offense had a price assigned to it by tradition. The price was set on the basis of the type of offense and the rank of the people involved. This system of monetary compensation was known as the wergild. This made society more orderly by replacing long bloody feuds between families with a non violent system based on cash payments. Over time the state began to take a small percentage of each restitution or wergild payment in order to cover its expenses. This was justified under the idea of the kings peace, which was an extension of the Pax Romana. The Pax Romana or Roman Peace was the Roman Empire's justification for conquering less developed societies. The Romans maintained that they brought peace t(warlike barbarians and deserved the loyalty and obedience of those they conquered in return. After the fall of the Roman Empire, this idea was adopted by monarchs throughout Europe to justify their power and conquests. The king finally came to define himself as the offended party in all criminal acts. Crimes were acts that threatened the peace and welfare of the society, not just the victim. This eventually led to the separation of civil from criminal law as well as to the reduction of the victim from the prosecutor to a mere witness.

English tradition has long stressed the need for equal treatment of all citizens while it limits the power of government authorities. These ideas grew even stronger in the American colonies and became fundamental constitutional doctrines when this nation was formed. The stress on personal rights and limited government power found in our Constitution was a reflection of current philosophy as well as a reaction to abuses by the British. Most of the American states adopted Common Law either by constitutional or statutory enactment.

 

 

Variant # 6 „Е”