When informal relationships prove insufficient to establish and maintain a desired social order, a government or a state may impose more formalized or stricter systems of social control. With institutional and legal

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The word crime is derived from the Latin root cernō, meaning "I decide, I give judgment". Originally the Latin word crīmen meant "

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England and Wales
Whether a given act or omissionconstitutes a crime does not depend on the nature of that act or omission; it depends on the nature of

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One can view criminalization as a procedure deployed by society as a preemptive harm-reduction device, using the threat of punishment

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Justifying the state's use of force to coerce compliance with its laws has proven a consistent theoretical problem. One of the earliest justifications involved the theory of natural law. This posits that the nature of the world or of human beings underlies the standards of

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Some religious communities regard sin as a crime; some may even highlight the crime of sin very early in legendary or mythological accounts of origins – note the tale of

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The label of "crime" and the accompanying social stigmanormally confine their scope to those activities seen as injurious to the general population or to the state, including some that cause

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