Exploration: The Law of Crimes

• What distinguishes criminal prohibitions is there being declared criminal at all. This declaration has a two-fold effect:

  1. Defining conduct as criminal, the state is proposing that the conduct involves matters most weight.
  2. The state is also asserting the gravity of the matter authorises it to discipline and punish its citizens.

  Criminal law is about the authority of the state to declare conduct criminal and about its authority to discipline and punish individuals when they act in those proscribed ways.