Criminal Justice

The Definition of Crime
The difference between criminal and civil wrongs is not clear-cut. Broadly, crimes are broadly offences against the public while offences against private persons are civil wrongs. There are some offences against the public and the State (such as the non-payment of taxes) which are not considered to be criminal offences though, and there are offences against individuals (such as murder) which are considered to be criminal. Further, some acts like defamation are both civil wrongs and criminal offences.
Austin said that a wrong which is pursued by the sovereign or his subordinates is a crime while a wrong which is pursued at the discretion of the injured party and his representative is a civil injury.
The Indian Penal Code does not define what a crime is. It merely says that the word ‘offence’ denotes a thing made punishable by the Code in Section 40. Different scholars have defined ‘crime’ from different perspectives.

Crime as a public wrong:
Initially, Blackstone defined crime as ‘an act committed or omitted in violation of a public of a public law forbidding or commanding it’.
He later modified his definition to ‘crime is a violation of public rights and duties due to the whole community considered as a community’.
James Stephen modified this definition as follows:
A crime is a violation of rights considered in reference to the evil tendency of such violation as regards the community at large.

Crime as a social wrong:
John Gillin defined crime as ‘an act that has been shown to be actually harmful to society or that is believed to be socially harmful by a group of people that has power to enforce its beliefs and places such an act under the ban of positive penalties.

Crime as a procedural wrong:
Russel said that criminal offences are basically the creation of a criminal policy adopted from time to time by those sections of community who are powerful enough to safeguard their own security and comfort by sovereign power.
Other scholars have defined crime by simply listing its characteristics. For example, Edwin Sutherland defined crime as a body of specific rules regarding human conduct which have been promulgated by political authority which apply uniformly to all members of classes.
And Roscoe Pound solved the problem of defining crime by simply saying that it is impossible to define crime because ‘law is a living, changing thing which may at one time be based on sovereign will and at another time on juristic science, which may at one time be uniform, and at another time give much room for judicial discretion, which may at one time be more specific in its prescription and at another time much more general’.