ABSTRACT
Criminal law is concerned with conduct which the State considers should be punished, whereas civil law is concerned with private rights. A crime may be regarded as a public wrong; but conduct which is harmful to the public is not necessarily criminal. ‘Crimes, then, are wrongs which the judges have held, or Parliament has from time to time laid down, are sufficiently injurious to the public to warrant the application of criminal procedure to deal with them.’ (Smith and Hogan.) Nor is immoral conduct necessarily criminal; but conduct which would not be regarded as immoral may be criminal on grounds of social expediency. ‘The domain of criminal jurisprudence can only be ascertained by examining what acts at any particular period are declared by the State to be crimes . . .’ (Lord Atkin.)
This means that crime can only usefully be defined by reference to procedure: ‘A crime (or offence) is a legal wrong that can be followed by criminal proceedings which may result in punishment.’ (Glanville Williams).
