Definition of Characteristics of Crimes
1.To be stated in ordinary language, an unlawful act, which is considered as a punishable act by the state or the other authority, could be defined as a crime (Sadat 2013). However, in the modern criminal law, to define crime is not simple. English criminal law, which is the body of law in the jurisdiction of England and Wales deals with the crime and their consequences (Stephen 2014). Crime is considered as an offensive action against the whole community. To define the crime, it should be classified into two sections, one is actus reus and the other is mens rea. These are two Latin terms. Actus reus is the external element of a crime, which means the act of guilt or doing something that is prohibited (Reichel and Albanese 2013). It defines the performance of the actual crime, which should be a deliberate act.
The intention or the mindset to commit the crime is known as the mens rea, which is sometimes known as criminal intent. When it is translated from Latin, mens rea means guilty mind. Mens rea could be four types, which are intentional, knowing, reckless and negligent. The purposeful action of the offender is the intentional mens rea (Reichel and Albanese 2013). For example, if a person decides to rob a bank or a store, his action could be counted as intentional. Hence, in the act of robbery, the intentional mens rea has been expressed.
The knowing mens rea is the mindset of an offender who knows that his action would be counted as a criminal activity. When an offender acts knowing that he is committing the crime and his activity would be the result of his action (Norrie 2014). For example, A asks to borrow the keys from B who works at the local bank. However, if B provides the key to A after knowing that A would rob the bank, B would likely have a knowing mens rea if the bank were robbed. B has provided the keys of the bank to A knowing that A is a bank robber, therefore he has knowing mens rea.
When a person decides to involve in behavior after knowing the risks of his action his mens rea is reckless mens rea (Turner 2013). When someone drives drunkenly and causes a serious accident then that person has reckless mens rea. The person does not intend to cause harm; however, he is aware of the risk of the harm when he drives drunkenly.
Impact of Crime on Community
The last type of mens rea is negligent mens rea, which sometimes called criminal negligence. The criminal act occurs due to a negligent mindset of the criminal and the jurisdiction system would ask that if a reasonable person were in the same situation whether he would have acted in the same way or differently (Badar 2013)? The example of the negligent mens rea is that if a child’s caretaker would leave the child alone in the park and the child would have a serious injury after falling from the slide, then the mindset of the child caretaker constitutes with the criminal negligence.
When the guilty act or actus reus is proved after a reasonable doubt and combines with the guilty mind or mens rea, it produces criminal liability according to the criminal law jurisdiction of England and Wales. These two terms were developed in the English Law. Edward Coke stated the principle namely, ‘actus non facit reum nisi mens sit rea’. These two terms are derived from the principle stated by the Edward Coke. Originally, the principle is in Latin, however, after translating the principle into English it becomes ‘an act does not make a person guilty unless their mind is also guilty’ (De Than and Shorts 2013). Hence, according to the principle, the crime is not only the act; rather it entails the intention and thought behind the act.
The final basic component of the crime is concurrence, which constitutes the act and the mental state to commit the crime. The mental state and the action need to work at the same time to commit the crime. The actus reus and mens rea need to work at the same time and one cannot work without the other (Bantekas and Nash 2014). The two components are interconnected with each other. When a crime is judged, the jurisdiction system views what is the action of the criminal and the mindset behind his or her action. As these two components act at the same time and are depended on each other, this feature of the crime is known as concurrence.
2. The impact of the crime is devastating for the victim and his or her family members. The impact could be both emotional and physical. The victim, his or her family members, friends and the whole community could be harmed due to an occurrence of the crime. It does not matter in what circumstances the crime is committed; it could diminish the victim’s self-respect or the sense of control (Crawford and Evans 2017). Crime affects in different ways for different people. It depends on the victim that how he or she has been impacted by the crime. The impact of the crime would vary over the time and it could differ even from day to day.
Mens rea or Criminal Intent
The common reaction to the crime is that the victim initially feels numb as if an accident or a devastating incident has happened (Maruna and Immarigeon 2013). Some victim could feel helpless and the feeling that no one actually understands the core feelings of the victim and what he or she is going through. Some victim could feel shocked, angry or fearful. The crime creates an abnormal event and the victim could feel distressed, as the crime has occurred.
There are several types of cognitive difficulties that could be happened to the victim after experiencing the crime. These cognitive difficulties include disorientation, confusion, memory problems, disturbed thinking, distressing dreams and difficulty in solving problems (Jones 2015). The emotional responses could be anxiety, fear, anger, depression, grief, feeling helpless or isolated and desire to hide or withdraw from the members of the community.
Most of the cases, the reactions of the victim are temporary. Many people recover within a few weeks or months. However, for some people, the reactions persist and they need treatment and psychological support system to get over from the effect of the crime. The different victim has different coping time or methods to deal with the crime and trauma. It depends on the victim that how he or she would cope with the crime. The government proposes various support systems like offering help from the psychiatrists or provides blogs where the victims of the crime have written several other incidents (Crawford and Evans 2017).
The victim of the crime is directly affected by the crime. As a community member, when the victim is affected his reaction could affect the other members of the community as individual and society are interconnected. Crime and criminality could have a dramatic impact on the community or the social structure. It has been seen that with the increased rate of crime, the social fabric and the interpersonal relationship between the members of a community diminish as crime creates fear in the community (Crawford and Evans 2017). The trust among the members of the community decreases with the increased rate of crime.
The fear of crime affects the social fabric of a community. The National Institute of Justice has published a study in 2001, which states that the fear of crime in a community attracts the criminals to commit the crime as the community that has fear for the crime shows the weaker social fabric (Maruna and Immarigeon 2013). Fear of the crime affects different people in the community in different ways. Women in any community tend to affect most by the fear of the crime as most of the cases the crime against women is sexually oriented. The elder people in a community believe that they are the natural target of the crime as they are the weaker members of the community. However, the ethnic minorities are the most fearful groups of all communities that are affected by the fear of the crime.
Ethnic groups are the first target of the crime; therefore, they have the high rates of the fear of crime. However, they become the first target to suspect of a crime, therefore when crime increases in a community, they become the isolated group from the rest of the community (Crawford and Evans 2017). The isolation of the ethnic group is the result of crime and criminality in a community.
Hence, the impact of the crime and the criminality could be varied according to the society and social structure. It depends upon the member of the society that how they deal with the crime. The impact could even be varied as the different member of a community deal the fear of the crime differently.
References:
Badar, M.E., 2013. The concept of mens rea in international criminal law: the case for a unified approach. Bloomsbury Publishing.
Bantekas, I. and Nash, S., 2014. International criminal law. Routledge.
Crawford, A. and Evans, K., 2017. Crime prevention and community safety (pp. 797-824). Oxford University Press.
De Than, C. and Shorts, E., 2013. International criminal law and human rights. Sweet & Maxwell.
Jones, D., 2015. Crime, protest, community, and police in nineteenth-century Britain (Vol. 5). Routledge.
Maruna, S. and Immarigeon, R. eds., 2013. After crime and punishment. Routledge.
Norrie, A., 2014. Crime, reason and history: A critical introduction to criminal law. Cambridge University Press.
Reichel, P. and Albanese, J. eds., 2013. Handbook of transnational crime and justice. Sage publications.
Sadat, L.N., 2013. Crimes against humanity in the modern age. American Journal of International Law, 107(2), pp.334-377.
Stephen, J.F., 2014. A history of the criminal law of England(Vol. 2). Cambridge University Press.
Turner, J.C., 2013. Kenny’s outlines of criminal law. Cambridge University Press.
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