Crime in United Kingdom
Definition of Crime
In accordance with the work A Dictionary of Law, this is a description of Crime :
An act (or sometimes a failure to act) that is deemed by statute or by the common law to be a public wrong and is therefore punishable by the state in criminal proceedings. Every crime consists of an *actus reus accompanied by a specified *mens rea (unless it is a crime of *strict liability), and the prosecution must prove these elements of the crime beyond reasonable doubt (See burden of proof). Some crimes are serious wrongs of a moral nature (e.g. murder or rape); others interfere with the smooth running of society (e.g. parking offences). Most *prosecutions for crime are brought by the police (although they can also be initiated by private people); some require the consent of the *Attorney General. Crimes are customarily divided into *indictable offences (for trial by judge and jury) and *summary offences (for trial by magistrates); some are hybrid (See offences triable either way). Crimes are also divided into *arrestable offences and nonarrestable offences. The *punishments for a crime include death (for treason), life imprisonment (e.g. for murder), imprisonment for a specified period, suspended sentences of imprisonment, conditional discharges, probation, binding over, and fines; in most cases judges have discretion in deciding on the punishment (See sentence). Some crimes may also be civil wrongs (See tort); for example, theft and criminal damage are crimes punishable by imprisonment as well as torts for which the victim may claim damages.
Categories and Statistics
Wherever crime shows itself it follows certain well-defined lines and has its genesis in three dominant mental processes, the result of marked propensities. These are malice, acquisitiveness and lust. Malicious crimes may be amplified into offences against the person originating in hatred, resentment, violent temper, and rising from mere assaults into manslaughter and murder. Crimes of greed and acquisitiveness cover the whole range of thefts, frauds and misappropriation; of larcenies of all sorts; obtaining by false pretences; receiving stolen goods; robberies; house-breaking, burglary, forgery and coining. Crimes of lust embrace the whole range of illicit sexual relations, the result of ungovernable passion and criminal depravity. The proportions in which these three categories are manifested have been worked out in England and Wales to give the following figures. The percentage in any 100,000 of the population is:
- Crimes of malice: 15%
- Crimes of greed: 75%
- Crimes of lust: 10%
The members of these categories do not form distinct classes; their crimes are interdependent and constantly overlap. Crime in many is progressive and passes through all the stages from minor offences to the worst crimes. Murder—the culminating point of malice—is constantly preceded by petty larceny; theft by forcible entry; and robbery is associated with violence and armed resistance to capture. Criminality rising into its highest development shows itself under many forms. It is instinctive, passionate, accidental, deliberate and habitual, the outcome of abnormal appetite, of weak and disordered moral sense. The causation of crime varies, but a predominating motive is idleness, leading to the predatory instincts of gain easily acquired without the labour of continuous effort. To deprive the more industrious or more happily placed of their hard-won earnings or possessions, inspires the bulk of modern serious crime. It no doubt has produced one peculiar feature in modern crime: the extensive scale on which it is carried out. The greatest frauds are now commonly perpetrated; great robberies are planned in one capital and executed in another. The whole is worked by wide associations of cosmopolitan criminals.
Other features of modern crime are especially interesting. It is extraordinarily precocious. Children of quite tender years commit murders, and boys and girls are frequently to be met with as professional thieves. Again, the comparative proportions of crime in the two sexes may be considered. Everywhere women are less criminal than men. Naturally they have fewer facilities for committing crimes of violence, although they have offences peculiar to their sex, such as infanticide, and are more frequently guilty of poisoning than men by 70% against 30%. (…)
In Great Britain, (the proportion of accused women) is now (in 1911) one in four, but has been less. The total sentenced in 1905-1906 to penal servitude and imprisonment was 139,389 men and 44,294 women, the balance being made up by summary convictions. The curious fact in female crime is that one-seventh of the women committed to prison had already been convicted from eleven to twenty times. It has been well said from the above proportions that women are less criminal according to the figures, because when a woman wants a crime committed she can generally find a man to do it for her.
It has often been debated whether or not prison methods react upon the criminality of the country; whether, in other words, severity of treatment deters, while milder methods encourage the wrongdoers to despise the penalties imposed by the law. Evidence for and against the verdict may be drawn from the whole civilized world. In England, as judged by the increase or decrease of the prison population, it might be supposed that the prison system was at one time effective in diminishing crime. Between 1878 and 1891 there was a steady decrease in numbers because of it. More recently there has been an appreciable increase in the number of crimes and proportionately of those imprisoned. The figures for 1906 showed a distinct increase in criminality for that year as compared with the years immediately preceding. The proportion of indictable offences had increased in 1906 from 59,079 as against 50,494 in 1899, or in the proportion of 171.01 per 100,000 of the population as against 158.97, a very marked increase over earlier years.
Nevertheless the figures for 1906, although high, are by no means the highest, as on eight occasions during the fifty odd years for which statistics were available in 1909 the total crimes exceeded 60,000, and in the quinquennial period 1860-1864 the annual average was 280 per 100,000 as compared with 171.01 for 1906 and 175 for the quinquennial period 1902-1906. The quality of the crime varied, and while offences against property have increased, those against the person have constantly fallen. Quite half the whole number of crimes were committed by old offenders (see Recidivism).
Statistics have not been kept with the same care in all other countries, but some authentic figures may be quoted for France, where the number of thefts increased while offences against the person diminished. In Belgium there has been a satisfactory decrease in recent years. In Prussia the prison population has on the whole increased, but there has been a slight diminution in more serious crime. Some very noticeable figures are forthcoming from the United States, and comparison is possible of the relative amount of crime in the two countries, America and England. Here the want of statistics covering a large period is much to be regretted. On the general question serious crime in the ten years between 1880 and 1890 slightly increased, while petty crime was very considerably less during the period. Charges for homicide have been much more numerous.
There were in 1880, 4608, or a ratio of 9.1 to 100,000 of the population; but in 1890 these offences rose to 7351, or a ratio of 11.7. Comparing America with England, it has been calculated in round numbers that the proportion of prisoners to the general population was in the United States as 1 to every 759, and in England 1 to every 1764 persons. As regards the more serious crimes 449 the number in English convict prisons was as 1 to 10,000, and in the American state prisons (the corresponding institutions) the ratio was 1 to every 1358. In the lesser prisons, i.e. the English local prisons and the American city or county gaols, the numbers more nearly approximate, being in England 1 to 2143 and in America 1 to 1721. It has been argued that much of the crime in America is attributable to the preponderance of foreign immigrants, but the ratio of native born prisoners is that of 1237 to the million, of foreign born prisoners 1777 to the million.
Source: Encyclopedia Britannica (1911)
Crime and sentence
This section offers a description about Crime and sentence in the study of the general principles of Criminal Law.
The definition of a crime
This section offers a description about the definition of a crime in the study of the general principles of Criminal Law.
Resources
See Also
Criminology
Criminal Injury
Criminal Court (11.9)
Money Laundering Financial Crime (10.7)
National Crime Agency (10.6)
Criminal Justice Policy (10.3)
Libel (10.2)
Blackmail (10)
Criminal Damage (9.7)
Police and Crime Commissioners (9.4)
Crimes (9.4)
Fraud Offences (9)
Custody (8.9)
Computer Misuse (8.7)
Further Reading
A. MacDonald, Criminology (New York, 1893)
; A. Drähms, The Criminal (New York, 1900)
; E. Ferri, La Sociologie criminelle, trans. Ferrier (Paris, 1905)
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