Concept of Crime, Components of Crime and Criminal Liability

A six-year-old picks up a shopkeeper's chocolate and walks out. A grown man does exactly the same. Both took what was not theirs, yet the law treats them very differently. A driver who kills a pedestrian because his brakes failed is not judged like a driver who did it on purpose. What is the law looking for, beyond the bare act? This topic answers that, and the answer is the foundation for every offence you will study this semester.

In two minutes

A crime is conduct the law forbids under threat of punishment, and criminal liability normally needs four things together: a human being, a guilty mind (mens rea), a wrongful act or omission (actus reus), and injury to another; the general exceptions in Chapter III of the BNS remove liability where the mind is absent or immature.

The rest of this chapter

The full explanation, the cheat sheet, every previous-year question at every mark weight, the quiz and the answer skeletons are part of Law of Crimes on LexBlox Semester. Sign in to unlock the subject, or read Module 1 of Legal Language and Writing free.