Crime, in its legal, as opposed to its moral or ethical sense, is an act done in violation of those duties for the breach of which the law has provided that the offender, in addition to repairing, if it be possible, the injury done to the individual, shall make satisfaction to the community. A private wrong, or civil injury, on the other hand, is an infringement on the rights of an individual merely, for which compensation to him is held to be suffi- cient. Legal criminality is not a permanent characteristic of actions as such, but one decided by considerations of expediency. Without changing its absolute moral character, the same action may, and very often is, criminal in one country or generation, and no crime in another country or generation. It cannot, however, be supposed that the criminality or non-criminality of an action does not exercise an important reflex influence on the moral judgment of the community with respect to the particular action. Malice or evil intention is essential to the character of most crimes, for though there may be an immoral act which it is inexpedient to punish, it can rarely be expedient to punish what is not an immoral act. But it is not necessary that the evil intention shall have had reference to the party injured. If the offender acted in defiance of social duty, a crime has been committed, though not the particular crime intended. For example, it is murder if A kill B by mistake for C, unless the killing of C would have been justifiable, or excusable. But the absurd doctrine of versans in illicito, according to which A shooting at his neighbour's poultry, and killing his neighbour, is guilty of murder, is now generally abandoned. The law can take no cognisance of a bare intention which has not ripened into any sort of act. How far Attempts (q.v.) are punishable is always a question of difficulty. The general rule seems to be that if such acts can be unequivocally connected with the criminal intention, they are punishable, though not to the same extent as the completed crime—e.g. if the act is one of a series which, if not interrupted, would result in the commission of the crime, even though the accused voluntarily desisted from further attempts. Pupils under seven years of age, and insane persons, as being incapable of design or intention, are regarded in the eye of the law as incapable of crime; as regards children between seven and fourteen it must be shown that they had capacity to know their act was wrong. In the case of persons under sixteen, otherwise known as juvenile offenders, magistrates have a large discretion to substitute for ordinary punishment confinement in a reformatory school. The legal definition of insanity is well settled in England and Scotland, but is totally inadequate from the medico-psychological point of view. The law of responsibility in drunkenness and delirium tremens also requires amendment. Ignorance of law is no defence—e.g. a foreigner, killing his opponent in a duel in England, is guilty of murder. In some cases ignorance of fact is important—e.g. where bigamy is charged against a woman who had reason to believe her husband dead. The defence of compulsion, if completely established in fact, is generally sufficient in law. The subjection of a servant to a master, or of a wife or child to a husband or parent, will be no defence, but in the latter case few juries would convict, except in extraordinary circumstances. Magistrates acting bonâ fide, and soldiers and policemen acting under their officers in the ordinary line of duty, are not liable to a criminal charge. Extreme want is no excuse in law, though it furnishes a ground for an application for mercy, as in cannibalism at sea.
In the technical language of the law of England, the term offence has a wider signification than crime, the latter including only such of the former as are punishable by Indictment (q.v.). Crimes are divided into Misdemeanours (q.v.) and Felonies (q.v.), the latter being a higher species of offence than the former. The Criminal and Judicial Statistics give annual data as to the number of trials and convictions, as to police, prisons, and prisoners, the number of the criminal classes (29,226 in England and Wales in 1886), &c. See CRIMINAL LAW.