Different Perspectives on Defining Crime

QUESTIONS
Question 1 – Outline the different ways in which crime can be defined.
Crime can be defined from various perspectives giving it diverse and broad meaning and
understanding. From the sociology perspective crime can be defined as an offence which interfere
the public as well as personal sphere in a way that it breaks the prohibited laws which needs
intervention from authorities and punishments (Hipp and Kim, 2017). From the dictionary or verbal
aspect crime is referred as action which is forbidden by law and which can cause harm. In
legislative perspective crime is known as omission which is prohibited under suitable penal
provisions by state authorities. Laws classify any action as crime only when its clear definition can
be explained and justified with appropriate data and claims. On broader perspective or on
humanitarian grounds all those activities which violates the human rights of individuals are
classified as crime. This perspective is also crucial because the understanding of human rights may
vary with places and time and thus the extent of their violation can alter the scope and nature of
crime. It also states that if human rights are violated then the actions are crime and no matters if
they are legally defined or not.
Conceptions of social harms describe crime as actions or inactions which consist of both
civil and criminal offences causing harm and thus attract particular sort of penalty. There are certain
cross cultural norms as well which states that cultural variation does not alter the essence or
meaning of crime (Bhatia and Sheptycki, 2019). Thus conduct norms must be postulated which
occurs across various cultural backgrounds. Labelling approach also explains crime that they exist
only when a particular activity is able to stimulate a social response in a way that activity can be
labelled as criminal offence. For societies which does not label a particular activity as crime may
not classify the action as crime irrespective of the fact that same activity is considered as crime in
other society or culture.
Question 2 – Define and describe criminal responsibility.
Criminal responsibility, also famous as inanity defence is defined as the mental ability of the
defendant to differentiate between wrong and right at the time of mentioned offense and their ability
to control their conduct in the same situation. Thus it also describes the psychology or thinking
process of an individual when committing crime. It also tries to gain understanding of the thought
process a person may have when anticipating the actions or results of committing crime. Thus
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criminal responsibility can be considered as the aspect which explores the relation between mental
state and crime. Criminal responsibility is considered as the crucial issue of whether the mental state
of defendant at the crime time is stable enough to consider them accountable for their action or not.
In response of this infancy is known as defence approach or an excuse so that defendants within
infant category can be excluded from the criminal liability against their actions.
When individuals are convicted for the crime committed by them they are punish and held
criminally responsible. The label reflects legal and moral judgement that individual does not have
any justification or excuse for their code of conduct or behaviour and they should have known it
better. Thus as corrective mechanism they must be given punishment so that recurrence of similar
behaviour can be discouraged (Ferencz, 2020). However, in some circumstances such as actions or
crime done in self-defence may not appear faults and individuals may not be considered criminally
responsible or guilty from legal or moral perspective. For instance, children or individuals with
disability may be exempted from criminal responsible judgements due to their certain
characteristics which render them in social context and due to inability of them to make legal and
moral judgements.
Question 3 – Discuss how the rights of citizens and the police are ‘balanced’ during a police
investigation.
During police investigating procedures it is ensure by the legal system and human rights that
there is a balance between police and citizen rights. Every individual has fair right of trial, security
and acceptable treatment. The trials or investigation procedures does ensure that privacy of citizens
is respected and there are no unlawful attacks on reputation of individual. No unlawful pressure or
torture is applied on citizens whether they are victim, suspect or criminal (Jin and et.al., 2019).
However, in order to follow these standard procedures, it has been also taken into consideration that
rights of police officers to maintain their safety and national integrity are also respected.
However, for detention and investigation sessions police is also provided rights to record the
investigation so that they can smoothly carry out the judicial proceedings. For ensuring the safety of
police during procedures official trainings are also given to officers so that they can use strict and
necessary actions which may violate the human rights of criminals or suspects. In addition to this
standard orders are also set so that investigations and investigating officers can be legally safeguard
from any kind of violation against police. There is strict procedure for the supervisory process so
that police officers are also not pressured or forced to make changes in confessions (Rorie and et.al.,
2018). The legal system has also established only a limited reliance on the confessions so that duty
and human rights or police are also protected during investigation. Police is facilitated with armed
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