Lesson 1: What is Criminal Law?
Legal Studies 3080
Section 1 - Our Criminal Justice System
Lesson 1 - What is Criminal Law?
Have you ever wondered what life
would be like if there were no laws? We would be right back in the days
where the law of "survival of the fittest" saw to it that only the
strongest lived and prospered.
Laws are not written in stone -
though it sometimes seems as though they are. As society changes, so too, does its laws. The development over the past few decades of
computer technology and the Internet, for example, has created a whole
new class of problems with which our lawmakers must wrestle. Computer
crime didn't exist a few years ago, but now it's a very serious issue.
Of course the idea that society needs rules should not be new to you. Every organization begins by setting up the rules and regulations its members will live by. You may even remember doing this as a young child when you formed clubs with your friends. But not all rules make you a criminal if you break them.
For example, in Canada we have a rule that cars should be driven on the right-hand side of the road. Will driving on the left-hand side make you a criminal? If a newspaper libels someone in an article, is this a criminal offense? If you break a contract of employment have you committed a crime? The question becomes, then, just what does make the breaking of some rules crimes? What is a crime anyway?