ABSTRACT
Not all societies have had “crime” in the manner that we think of it today, and the landscape of crime in contemporary times continues to change with alterations to the underlying causes of crime, denitions of crime, and mechanisms of crime control. This chapter rst sets the context with a brief introduction to the inextricable link between criminal law and “crime,” and then goes on to explore some of the historic evolution of criminal behavior and changes to how society has dened and responded to criminal behavior.
