The definition of Crime is beautifully quoted by Lord William Blackstone, an

eminent English jurist of eighteenth-century A.D. that, “ Crime as an act

committed or omitted in violation of public-law either forbidding or commanding
it”. In this definition, Lord Blackstone has emphasized crime as the harm or injury
carried out on the community at large.

Early ideas about crime were either linked to religion or property. Immoral acts,
moralities and sacrilege was considered sins (which was equivalent to crime) and
was primarily dealt with by the church. Besides this, the church also maintained
law and order, discipline and probity.

Ingredients Of Crime

There are four elements or ingredients which are necessary for the commission of
crime:

Human Being

The first ingredient required for a crime is that the unlawful act must be done by a
human. In ancient times, when criminal law was dictated by the concept of
retribution, punishments were imposed on humans as well as animals for causing
any harm. For e.g. often horses or cows were killed for causing harm to human
beings like kicking a man or destroying property.

This concept was not considered much logical consequently discarded. The rules
of crime and criminal jurisprudence have been amended time and time again for
refinement. Now, the first ingredient of crime is a human being. It is mandatory
that the human being or person must be under a legal duty to act in a specific
manner and should be fit for rewarding punishments. Further, Section 11 of
Indian Penal Code (IPC) 1860 elaborates on this concept and states that the word
“person” aside from a human being may include a Company or Association or
body of persons, whether incorporated or not. Therefore, the word “person” may
include artificial or juridical persons as well.

Mens Rea (Guilty Mind)

The second significant ingredient of the crime is mens rea or evil mind or
intentions. This is based on the maxim, “actus non facit reum nisi mens sit rea”
which means guilty acts and guilty intentions together comprise crime. Every
crime requires a mental element or ingredient which is considered as the basic
principle of criminal liability. Therefore, no person can be punished in a criminal
proceeding unless it can be shown that he had a guilty mind.

Actus Reus (Guilty Act or Omission)

The third essential ingredient of crime is Actus Reus or Guilty Act. This term (Actus
Reus) was first used by Prof.Kenny. Actus Reus is the manifestation of Mens Rea
in the external world. It denotes the act done by a person in furtherance of his
mens rea or guilty intention. In criminal law, along with mens rea, it’s important
to prove the actus reus of the accused in order to convict him for an offence.

Injury

The fourth requirement for the commission of crime is Injury. This injury could be
to a specific person or society as a whole. Section 44 of Indian Penal Code (IPC)
1860, describes that the injury caused should be done illegally by the offender
and could be to the body, mind, reputation or property of the person.

Classification of Crime

Almost every legal system divides crimes into several categories for various
purposes connected with the working of the court. The Common Law primitively
divides crime into two

Categories:

Common law

Felonies

In this type, the crimes are generally heinous and of grave nature. These types of
crimes are mostly punished with death and confiscation of the perpetrator’s land
and goods to the crown. At the outset, the police have even the power to arrest a
person on basis of mere suspicion that he/she had committed the offence.
Misdemeanor’s

In this type, the crimes are mostly trivial and small ones. These types of crimes are
generally punishable by fines or imprisonment. Herein, the police have no right or
power to arrest a person on basis of mere suspicion or doubt.

In the early nineteenth century, theft was considered a felony regardless of the
amount stolen. On the other hand, fraud or deception was considered as
misdemeanour irrespective of how serious it was. Thus, there was no distinction
with regard to the gravity of the offence committed. This discrepancy could be
attributed to the fact that the growth of law at the time was sluggish and
stagnant. However, in the late 1960s, the above-mentioned system was amended
to provide a distinction between such offences and make the law more effectual
and justifiable.

Indian law

The Criminal Procedure Code (Cr.P.C.) classifies all the crimes into two categories:

cognizable offences; and

non-cognizable offences.

First Schedule of the Cr.P.C. gives the classification of the offenses of the IPC into
Cognizable and Non-Cognizable categories:

Cognizable

A Cognizable offense or case is defined as the one which an officer-in-charge of a

police station may investigate without the order of a magistrate and effect arrest
without a warrant. The Police have a direct responsibility to take immediate
action on the receipt of a complaint or of credible information in such crimes, visit
the scene of the crime, investigate the facts, apprehend the offender and arraign
him before a Court of law having jurisdiction over the matter.

Non-cognizable
Non-Cognizable crimes are defined as those which cannot be investigated by
police without the order of a competent magistrate. The Police do not initiate an
investigation in NonCognizable crimes except with magisterial permission.

Measurement of Crimes

Evaluating the extent of crime actually committed is a quite complicated and

arduous task.

Statistical data for recorded crime don’t generally provide a precise picture,
because they are affected by variable factors like the willingness of the victim to
report a crime. It is quite obvious that officially reported crimes are only a small
fraction of actual crimes committed. The public opinion of crime is largely
acquired from the print media and digital media as the

media mostly focuses on serious and sensational crimes which result in public’s
distorted perception. Another precise view is mostly provided by the
comprehensive stats of crime that are gathered and published by the government
departments like The National Crime Records Bureau (NCRB) which provides
annual data related to crime in the country. Similarly, the Federal Bureau of
Investigation (FBI) publishes crime stats annually which is known as Uniform
Crime Reports.

However, it is known that a lot of crimes go unreported and as a result the data
often gets distorted. Other factors accounting for the distortion is the magnitude
to which police resources are aimed towards the investigation of one kind of
crime rather than another, specifically with regard to “Victimless Crimes” such as
possession of drugs. These types of crimes are not revealed unless the police
gather their efforts to look into them.

Additionally, another factor that can have a noteworthy effect on the evident
statistical incidence of a specific type of a crime is a change in the willingness of a
victim to report the crime to the police. Victims frequently fail to report the crime
due to various reasons: lack of awareness, lack of trust and lack of confidence to
report the crime.
Approaches to Crime

Crime is a relative and dynamic concept which keeps on changing with the
passage of time.

Consistent with the perspective of taking crime as an ordinary and unavoidable

part of life, there are often very few expectations that reactions to crime will
affect future criminality. The approaches to crime have been different in different
stages of human civilization and had been distinct in dissimilar societies. The
mental outlook towards crime has always been pronounced by extreme emotions
and sentiments shown by society and its people.

There are various approaches to crime. They are mentioned below:

Traditional Approach

Modern Approach

Sociological Approach

Psychological Approach

Legal Approach

From the above-mentioned approaches to the crime, only three have been
discussed below.

Sociological Approach to Crime

Environmental determinants like physical, social, economical, cultural and

political may shape the behaviour and attitude of people. Meager social, physical
and family environment may lead the person to strengthen his intentions towards
the crime. Living in poverty and destitution, lack of social support and pessimistic
familial background may increase the possibility of occurrence of criminal acts in
the society. Furthermore, unemployment, illiteracy and lack of awareness add to
the risks of criminal acts. Crime can be the repercussion of defective social
structure and persons living in those societies may learn criminal acts because of
socialization.

The Strain Theory given by Merton in 1938 is based on a socio-structural outlook.

According to this theory, the social structure within the society can give rise to
criminal acts in society. When people experience stress or strain in their lives,
they start to behave like criminals to reduce the negativity from their lives. On the
basis of general Strain Theory, two general types of strain or stress can lead to
committing of criminal acts by a person:

i) when someone prevents an individual from achieving his goals;

ii) when someone takes valuable things owned by an individual.

The goals mentioned above could be money, status or autonomy from

adolescents. If there are limited ways to achieve these goals, people will stick to
committing criminal acts even by using illegal ways. Moreover, if anything which is
precious to an individual is snatched away, it is likely that he will go to all extent
to restore it, even if he has to take up unlawful means.

Most of the recent Sociological theories concentrate on the bigger social

environment like communities. Researchers and analysts try to comprehend why
some societies have a higher

crime rate than others. These questions further gave rise to the Social
Disorganization Theory. This theory is defined as the inability of members of a
particular community or society to achieve shared values. These societies or
communities have poor living standards, finite resources, residential instability,
family disruption, population density, and ethnic diversity. These situations may
halt public integration and further increase in criminal activities

Psychological approach to Crime

Due to the collaboration of Psychology and Criminology, new fields and disciplines
emerged in the field of education like Forensic Psychology, Legal Psychology and
Criminological Psychology. Psychological researchers try to scrutinize the effect of
individual differences, personality characteristics and psychological strands of
criminal acts while criminologists try to analyze the causes and reasons of an
individual’s criminal acts. This is the prime reason why psychological theories are
created to analyze the behaviour of the offender.

Psychodynamic Trait Theory given by Sigmund Freud in the late 1800s has proved
to be an effective approach in the history of crime studies and research.
According to this theory, childhood experiences forge the future interpersonal
relationships of persons. Id, ego and superego affect the behavior of persons. Id is
the primeval part that controls our requirements for food, desires, sleep and
other fundamental instincts. The Ego controls Id by setting up limits and due to
Superego, people judge the situation, reflecting the morality and rules of society.
This idea supports that the criminal is possessed with Id dominated personality
and behaviour. If the ego doesn’t control id, the person will behave like a criminal.
These persons have some communicational and social complications which result
in the happening of crime.

Various psychologists also found the effects of empathy and altruism on the
approaches to crime. Empathy is an emotional and cognitive capacity to perceive
the feelings and agony of others. While altruism is an active concern for others
welfare. Studies proved that the lower level of empathy and altruism causes
greater anti-social behavior and criminal acts. Moreover,

impulsiveness and negative sentimentality are other influenced personality traits

and characteristics which may increase criminal acts due to the fact that impulsive
person act and behave without thinking of consequences while a negative
sentimentality trait can’t control their behavior. Behavioral Psychology, on the
other hand, claims that people learn their behaviours through punishments and
rewards. Thus, the criminal activities may increase with reinforcements and
decrease with punishments and retribution.

Legal Approach to Crime

During most of the time when the sphere of criminology was being developed,
people supposed that crime was a behaviour that had been judged to be a
violation of the criminal law. This concept was clearly expressed by an eminent
criminologist, Paul Tappan in 1947 when he noticed that “ crime is an intentional
act in violation of Criminal Law which includes( statutes, case laws, acts)
committed without defence or excuse and penalized by the state as a felony or
misdemeanour”. Obviously, in this approach crime is factually easy to fathom, but
it suffers from the relativity of criminal law and the operation of the criminal
justice system. Explanations and clarification of crime would have to be relative to
the legal system and historical period and could not have a standing of scientific
explanations.

A powerful legal system and target hardening may decrease the rate of crime in a
society. Especially, the efficacy of laws and punishments may decrease criminal
acts. The fair legal system shapes and outlines the decision-making process of
potential criminals positively.

Conclusion

The origin of criminal activities has been discussed by different scientific

disciplines and various approaches. The article tended to rationalize the query of
“why people commit a crime?”. It could be concluded that there are various
factors which affect the behaviour of individuals and their decision to commit a
crime. The article aimed to present different approaches to criminal activities
within a society. The research on various approaches to crime makes it intelligible
and lucid clear that it is impossible to determine a specific approach to crime
which gives an infallible answer to all questions of crime causation and their
solutions. However, the different approaches to crime do provide better grounds
for the determination of particular policies for dealing with crimes and criminals
more smoothly.

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