There are two major types of crimes, natural crimes and legal crimes, which are now referred to as mala per se crimes and mala prohibita crimes, respectively (Crime, 2005). A crime is defined by law as an act, an actus rea, and the intent to commit the act, the mens rea. Criminal intent is defined as "an intellectual apprehension of factual elements of the act or acts commanded or enjoined by the law." This is inferred from the voluntary commission of an overt act.
A person is relieved of criminal liability for an act if they are found to be insane at the time they committed the act, if they were legally a minor when they committed the act, or were acting under coercion or duress which was of such an intensity as to make their commission of the crime involuntary (Crime, 2005). Crimes are usually defined by, and punished according to statutes. Such punishments may include fines, imprisonment, death, forfeiture of property, removal from public office and disqualification from holding public office.
A person cannot be legally indicted or convicted for the commission of a crime unless that crime is expressly defined by statutes as a crime (Crime, 2005). This defines the difference between government by law and a dictatorship. A crime under general law is usually classified as a felony, a misdemeanor or treason. Many offenses cannot be defined exactly, and the rule was adopted that "any immoral act tending to the prejudice of the community was, per se, a crime and punishable by the courts."
Crimes are classified as mala per se or mala prohibita. Mala per se are "natural" crimes - acts which are obviously criminal such as such as murder, rape, robbery, fraud, etc. which are crimes against nature, while mala prohibita offenses are "legal" crimes which are only crimes because statutes have been made prohibiting them, e.g. traffic violations or smoking marijuana (Crime, 2005; The Law, 2006). Mala prohibita are only cr...