• Crime is anything that lawmakers define as criminal.

• Torts are wrongs between individuals; crimes are offenses by an individual against society as a whole (even though there are real victims).

• Criminal law specifies what kinds of behavior are illegal, what punishments are available for dealing with offenders, and what defenses can be invoked by individuals who find themselves on the wrong side of the law.

• Criminal procedure is a vast system of laws and guidelines that detail how suspected and accused criminals are to be processed and handled by the criminal justice system.

• The first goal of the criminal law is punishment.

Punishment is most often associated with retribution, the view that offenders must be made to suffer, whether by confinement, death, or some other method for their indiscretions.

• The second goal of the criminal law is community protection.

• The criminal law promotes community protection because of the utilitarian perspective, which holds that the purpose of all criminal laws is to maximize the net happiness of society.

• The community is protected from criminals via incapacitation, deterrence, rehabilitation, restoration, and denunciation.

• The third goal of the criminal law is offender protection.

Offenders are protected against vigilantism and arbitrary punishment.

• A felony is a crime punishable by death or confinement in prison for more than 12 months. A misdemeanor, by contrast, is a crime punishable by a fine or a period of incarceration for less than 12 months.

• Malum in se (or the plural form, mala in se) is a Latin phrase meaning “wrong or evil in itself.” In contrast, malum prohibitum (or mala prohibita) means “wrong or evil because it is defined as such.”

Questions:-

1. How does a crime compare to a civil wrong?
2. In what ways is the criminal law different from the law of criminal procedure?
3. Explain the goals of the criminal law.
4. Which goal of the criminal law do you prefer, and why?
5. How are crimes classified?