The Criminal Lawyer’s Guide to Criminal Law (with pictures!)
Part 1: Crime
Page 4: What is “crime”?
NARRATOR
Criminal punishment is not imposed by private citizens, informal groups or one’s social circle.
Introducing The State.
NARRATOR
Criminal punishment is imposed by the STATE.
Aside
NARRATOR
Pictured here as a sort of modern Athena/Roma — forget Hobbes’ Leviathan, or Uncle Sam — the ancients had it right when they personified Government as a badass chick.
You don’t want to get on her bad side.
More text
NARRATOR
So CRIME means an act, deemed unacceptable by society, so bad that the STATE will step in and PUNISH you for doing it.
But what do we mean by “punishment?” What is it, and why does it happen?
We’ll cover that in Part 2: “Take That!”