Individual Rights Vs. Public Order
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Natural Crimes and Legal Crimes”
Crime is an act in violation of a law, unlawful activity, an unjust, senseless, a disgraceful act or condition. A natural crime is an act that is harmful to the society in which one lives. Natural crimes are crimes in any society at any age, and whether or not the crimes are committed by people who are in authority or not. Crimes are forms of unloving behavior that cannot and should not be overlooked. Any natural crime against an individual is a crime against the entire society. Natural crimes are obvious crimes with obvious victims. People who commit robberies, murders, theft, rape, blackmail, extortion, and kidnapping are committing natural crimes. Natural crimes are considered serious crimes against society. Natural crimes are crimes that are committed intentionally, negligently, recklessly, and knowingly. Natural crimes cause the most harm, occur more frequently and are more widespread.
Legal crimes are an act that violates the law in itself but is considered legal given the situation. For example; killing someone in self defense violates the law, however; murder in itself is a crime, but protecting ones life if threatening by bodily harm or injury is legal. Therefore, killing in self defense is a legal crime. Legal crimes are acts that are not harmful to another person, however; these acts are defined as crimes by society because of the influence these crimes have on those who are in authority. Legal crimes are less serious because they cause less harm, are not as frequent and are not as widespread. People who commit assault, fraud, embezzlement, vandalism, prostitution, and disorderly conduct are committing legal crimes. Legal crimes are not an obvious crime and do not have an obvious victim. However, not all crimes are reported to the police, therefore crimes are classified by the degree of harm caused, how frequent they occur, and how pervasive the crimes are throughout the country. Crimes can be distinguished by degree or severity of the crime by dividing the crimes into groups; felonies for severe crime and misdemeanors for less severe crimes. Another way to distinguish crime is between mala in se which is rape or murder or mala prohibita, which is trespassing, gambling, or prostitution. Once the public understands that the balance is the goal of “justice” the next step is to understand the difference between a natural crime and a legal crime. Confusion on this subject has always been the source of social injustice. The only difference between natural crimes and legal crimes is natural crimes is an obvious crime with an obvious victim and legal crimes is not an obvious crime without an obvious victim.
A crime has not been committed unless the following elements are present: harm, legality, actus reus, mens rea, causation, concurrence, and punishment. Americans know about crime based on statistics which is supplied by government agencies. Crime statistics are the most unreliable and the most difficult of all social statistics. Some of the reasons the statistics are unreliable and difficult is because behavior may be wrongly labeled, crimes go undetected, crimes are not reported to police or inaccurately reported to the police, and statistics do not include the dark figure of crime. The dark figure of crime is the number of crimes not reported by the police. The Uniform Crime Report (UCR) is the primary source of crime statistics in the United States. The UCR collects information using two major indexes; which are offenses known to the police and crimes not known to the police (dark figure of crime). The National Crime Victimization Survey (NCVS) is another source of crime statistics in the United States. The NCVS shows more