What attributes make up a crime?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crime
Societies define crime as the breach of one or more rules or laws for which some governing authority or force may ultimately prescribe a punishment. (as at 13th April'09)

The general description of crime is that it is something that attracts a punishment from an authority such as the State... we are then left to presume (or deduce) that the type of activities that will be punished are unhelpful and harmful to the population, or an individual. But we are not told the precise nature of what might be considered harmful, perhaps because we cannot be sure of what will come in the future, so we make laws by precedent. In any case, it is an action which is not approved of by an authority of some kind...

If we accept the doctrine of self-ownership and consequently reject positive rights (making people do something) in favour of negative rights (making people stop doing something), an authentic definition of "crime" emerges which allies well with the theories of Natural Law. If a person has only negative rights, they have only the ability to reject the actions of another person: they do not have the "right" to instruct them on how to behave (to make them do something)... Aggression is then only valid in self-defence and should not be instigated without prior cause. We accept (recognise) that to do nothing is not a crime and that we ultimately are entitled to life unless practicality or circumstance (such as over-population) prevent it.

If a person is to have self-ownership it would mean that whatever they chose to do to themselves, cannot be considered a crime... Even if the activity is dangerous such as rock climbing, or taking drugs, because the "harm" is being done to themselves, it is not a crime. We are allowed to abuse our bodies, since they "belong" to us...

If our bodies belong to us, then we are also able to engage in (mutually) voluntary activities with other people.

The "problem" arises when a person does not consent to our actions... By what criteria do we then decide if there has been a crime? If I am transgressing on their personal property or person, (and they do not agree) then I might have done something wrong. So how far does their personal property extend? If I have not harmed their property, but only harmed my own then (since it has been done to myself) there is no crime (even if there is harm). It can only be a crime if harm is done to the property or body of another person, which may extend to "shared" properties such as the natural environment, oceans and atmosphere... and they object to (disagree with) the stated actions and behaviours.

So for an action to be considered criminal we need not one, but both of the following conditions to be satisfied:

i) The complainant must not have been involved (knowingly and) willingly; it must have been involuntary, to mean without consent... a lack of consent.
ii) We must establish that harm has been committed, we can't have a victimless (harmless, the victim must have been harmed) crime.

So we must have a victim (someone (or thing, such as the environment?) who has been harmed) and secondly, they must not have given consent...


If we start with a definition of "crime" such as that given above, we can then move on to the practice of assigning punishments to activities which fit these two criteria... This is contrary to the practice of defining crimes by the punishments they receive, which tells us only about the consequences of the behaviour and not anything about their nature.

Monday 13 April 2009