Paper preparation and final review processes

¶ … criminal law. A comprehensive research, primary and secondary, was conducted in order to gather relevant information about crime, criminal law and crimes against a person. This study can help understanding the mechanism that deals with the criminal law.

Crime is an integral part of the everyday life and is a salient fact in today's world. In the opinion of public as well as the scholars, crime is usually linked with violence and harm to societies and individuals, destroying the property and degrading the respect of individuals, societies and institutions. It is quite obvious that we are facing problems in describing the nature of crimes and are unable to understand the works of many scholars on this subject. The basic question is "What is crime?" there are a number of answers to that, some are supporting each other while some are contradictory to each other. There is a strong need to identify the most accurate definition of crime in order to study the criminal law and the impact of such laws.

Richard Quinney mentions in his work "Criminology as Peacemaking," Crime is a breach of a law or a rule which can cause a governing authority to prescribe a conviction. (Richard Quinney, 1991) Crimes can be enforced or they can also result in caution. Different societies have different definition crimes. The violation of every law does not come under the domain of "crime." In the modern world and societies crimes are generally considered to be offenses against the state or the public. When the social order cannot be maintained by the informal relationships, the state or a government may impose a formal structure of laws for social control. The authorities can employ various authorities which can help in regulating certain behaviors. The governing authorities may provide general guidelines for the code of conduct and the consequences of breaching the law. Therefore, collectively the whole law making and implementing process in known as the criminal justice system. There is a strong relationship between society and crimes. Crime is considered by many as a social phenomenon and affects how an individual and society perceive crimes based on social practices and norms.

Criminal justice system comprises of the system implemented by various institutions of Government to direct the social control, mitigating and deterring crime by punishing those who have violated the laws by imposing them with penalties. In this manner the accused can be protected to a certain extent from crimes. The criminal justice system has basically three main parts:

1. Legislative

2. Adjudication

3. Corrections

Criminal law, due to its unique nature because of its serious consequences is different from the other laws. (Ashgate 2011). Crime is composed of some criminal elements. There are various types of punishments for the various types of crimes committed. Capital punishment for the serious crimes, physical or corporate punishment can be imposed which can include caning or whipping, however such punishments are prohibited in many of the countries. The courts are responsible for passing on the judgments to criminals according to the crimes committed. The length of the punishment can vary from days, months, years and even life. House arrest is also a kind of punishment. The convicts are bound to follow certain guidelines which are imposed on them by the jailers or the courts. Fines, seizing property and money from the person convicted are a common punishment all around the world.

There are five objectives given by Walker Samuel in 1992 in his work "Origins of the Contemporary Criminal Justice Paradigm," which are widely accepted to implement the criminal law by punishing the criminal. The first form is "Retribution." This is probably the most common way of punishing the criminals. The criminal who are held responsible for taking an undue advantage through their improper conduct, consequently should go through some sort of unpleasant disadvantage to equal the balance. The theory of "righting the balance" supports this mechanism. (Walker Samuel, 1992)

The second objective, Deterrence has an aim to impose a sufficient amount of penalty to the offender in order to discourage him for obtaining a criminal behavior. There are two types of deterrence, individual and general, individual deterrence relates to a specific offender while when it is aimed at society at large then it is general deterrence. Punishing the offenders can also discourage others to commit crimes after seeing the criminals being punished.

Incapacitation is the third type of objective which is designed to protect the society from misconducts through keeping the criminals away from the society. This is done through keeping the criminals sentenced in prison. Neocleous, Mark mentions in his "Fabricating Social Order: A Critical History of Police Power" that death penalties and banishments serve the same purpose. There are many arguments that capital punishment should not be an option as it sends out the wrong message for humanity but certain criminals are needed to be dealt in that way. (Neocleous Mark, 2004) Rehabilitation is another objective of the criminal law. Rehabilitation aims at transforming the criminal into a member of a society who can contribute to the society. The primary focus is on preventing the crime by making the criminal realize that his conduct was inappropriate.

The victim oriented theory is restitution for punishment. The main aim is to repair the hurt inflicted by the offender on the victim, with the help of the state authority. An example of such case would be of a person who is robbed by a robber and then the robber is caught by the police. The state will now be responsible to collect the amount from the robber and pay the victim accordingly. This is very closely related to the concepts of the civil law which also advocates the concept of returning the victim his original position.

Wolfgang Marvin mentions in his "Crime and Punishment in Renaissance Florence," that an offense against a person according to the criminal law is considered to be a crime which directly harming physically or applying force to some other person. (Wolfgang Marvin, 1990) There are three basic divisions of crime against a person.

1. Fatal Offences

2. Sexual Offences

3. Non-Fatal / Non-Sexual Offences

The fatal offences are further classified into two parts murders and manslaughter. Murder is considered to be the most fatal and serious of all the offences. It is an offence where the intention is to kill some other person. The intentions are however subject and requires some understanding of the person and the case to figure out. There can also be a transfer of intent also in certain circumstances. This happens when the harm intended was to some other person but a different person was killed in the process. Manslaughter is considered to be a lesser offence. Manslaughter can be of two types, voluntary and involuntary. When the defendant kills the other person with malice aforethought it is a form of voluntary manslaughter. Involuntary manslaughter is when the accused had no intention to cause death but caused death due to criminal negligence and recklessness.

The sexual crimes are usually categorized in a separate manner, although they are offences against a person. Sexual assault can be defined as an assault on another person of a sexual nature or any act of sexual nature committed without the consent of the other person. Most commonly the sexual assault is from a man on a woman but there are many cases when there is more than one man assaulting a woman. The most common forms of sexual assaults are rape, child sexual abuse, torture in a sexual manner, forced kissing and inappropriate touching.