Criminal law is the body of law that relates to crime. It is the body of rules that defines conduct that is not allowed because it is held to threaten, harm or endanger the safety and welfare of people. Criminal law also sets out the punishment to be imposed on people who do not obey these laws. Criminal law differs from civil law, whose emphasis is more on dispute resolution than in punishment.
Read more about Criminal Law: History, Objectives of Criminal Law, Selected Criminal Laws, Criminal Law Jurisdictions
Famous quotes containing the words criminal and/or law:
“Think of admitting the details of a single case of the criminal court into our thoughts, to stalk profanely through their very sanctum sanctorum for an hour, ay, for many hours! to make a very barroom of the mind’s inmost apartment, as if for so long the dust of the street had occupied us,—the very street itself, with all its travel, its bustle, and filth, had passed through our thoughts’ shrine! Would it not be an intellectual and moral suicide?”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)
“The Law of Triviality ... briefly stated, it means that the time spent on any item of the agenda will be in inverse proportion to the sum involved.”
—C. Northcote Parkinson (1909–1993)