Sort Crimes, Not Criminals
It is easy to make a mess of crime definitions by mixing up two distinct questions: First, what crimes do people commit — before anything is done about them? Second, how does the justice system act after it decides a crime has occurred? The second question brings with it many more complexities: Whether a crime happened this time; whether this person did it; whether the accused are treated equally by the justice system; and how people in different places and times act or do nothing. This chapter seeks to answer only the first question — what crime is before something is done about it.
Keywords: crime, criminology, justice system, accused
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