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Criminal law is the body of law that relates to crime. It prescribes conduct perceived as threatening, harmful, or otherwise endangering to the property, health, safety, and welfare of people inclusive of one's self. Most criminal law is established by statute, which is to say that the laws are enacted by a legislature.
In comparison, civil law addresses non-criminal disputes. The system varies considerably by jurisdiction, but conforms to the US Constitution. [1] Generally there are two systems of criminal law to which a person maybe subject; the most frequent is state criminal law, and the other is federal law.
The term crime does not, in modern criminal law, have any simple and universally accepted definition, [2] though statutory definitions have been provided for certain purposes. [3] The most popular view is that crime is a category created by law; in other words, something is a crime if declared as such by the relevant and applicable law. [2]
The functional study of criminal justice is at times distinct from criminology, which involves the study of crime as a social phenomenon, causes of crime, criminal behavior, and other aspects of crime; although in most cases today, criminal justice as a field of study is used as a synonym for criminology and the sociology of law.
In most common law jurisdictions, an element of a crime is one of a set of facts that must all be proven to convict a defendant of a crime. Before a court finds a defendant guilty of a criminal offense, the prosecution must present evidence that, even when opposed by any evidence the defense may choose, is credible and sufficient to prove beyond a reasonable doubt that the defendant committed ...
In criminal law, it is defined as the actus reus (an action) from which the specific injury or other effect arose and is combined with mens rea (a state of mind) to comprise the elements of guilt. Causation only applies where a result has been achieved and therefore is immaterial with regard to inchoate offenses.
Under the criminal law of Australia the Criminal Code Act 1995 (Commonwealth) abolished all common law offences at the federal level. [1] The Australian Capital Territory, the Northern Territory, Queensland, Tasmania and Western Australia have also abolished common law offences, but they still apply in New South Wales, South Australia and Victoria.
In The Concept of Law, H. L. A. Hart argued that law is a "system of rules"; [35] John Austin said law was "the command of a sovereign, backed by the threat of a sanction"; [36] Ronald Dworkin describes law as an "interpretive concept" to achieve justice in his text titled Law's Empire; [37] and Joseph Raz argues law is an "authority" to ...