Introduction
Crimes are acts or omissions that violate laws as stipulated in constitutions of various legal jurisdictions. Different countries, states, or other legal jurisdictions define and classify crimes differently based on their constitutions. Although crime entails violation of the law, not all acts or omissions that violate the law amount to crime. Therefore, due to variability and subjectivity of crimes from one legal jurisdiction to another, various constitutions define and classify crimes differently. Criminal justice system of the United States has great mandate of enforcing criminal law by arresting, prosecuting, and correcting criminals to maintain law and order in the society. According to Arnold (2008), for the criminal justice system to convict a suspect for committing certain crime, it must prove beyond reasonable doubt the existence of both actus reus and mens rea as elements of crime (p.10). Actus reus is an element of crime that proves if a suspect had any premeditated action and guilty of conscience to commit certain crime, while mens rea is an element that verifies if an act or omission violates the law. This essay examines forgery, assault and battery, and disorderly conduct as crimes against property, persons and public order respectively.
Crimes against Property
Crimes against property are offences that deprive ownership rights of property or destroy property against owner’s consent. Forgery, robbery, embezzlement and extortion are examples of crimes that deprive ownership rights while vandalism and arson are crimes that destroy individual’s property. Forgery is one of the crimes against property that involves depriving one’s property by using fraudulence means. According to Belbow (2005), criminal statute of Texas stipulates that, “it is an offense if a person forges writing with intent to defraud or harm another” (p.140). Forging constitutes alteration of writings or authentication of false documents with intention of defrauding one’s property. One can intentionally defraud a person by using fake financial documents such as cheques, money, bills, invoices, receipts and others. Since the documents deem to be legally valid, criminals use them to deprive people their property. Therefore, forgery fits into classification of crimes against property because it entails deprivation of property through fraudulent means.
An example of crime against property is a case where a company defrauded an insurance company millions of dollars through compensation. The company has been neglecting repair and maintenance of electronic equipments for a period of five years now. Due to cumulative damages that cost millions of dollars, the company management found it too high to repair, and thus plotted to defraud an insurance company. The company filed a claim with the insurance company that during thunderstorms, lightening struck and short-circuited all the electronic equipments damaging them beyond repair. Furthermore, the company destroyed underground cables to justify their claim and cooperated with the insurance assessors to inflate compensation claims so that they could defraud the insurance company millions of dollars. In this case scenario, the company’s management is guilty of committing crime against property by acting in actus reus and mens rea. Barker (2009) argues that, insurance companies and banks lose billions of dollars each year due to cases of fraudulence (p.5). Defrauding insurance company was in actus reus because the company’s management premeditated to defraud the insurance company by filing a forged claim. Moreover, the company’s action was mens era for it violated not only insurance policy, but also law that covers crimes against property.
Crimes against Persons
Crimes against persons are crimes that violate individual rights to life or freedom. These crimes include murder, child abuse, rape, assault and battery amongst other related crimes. Assault and battery is one of the crimes against persons because it entails violent threats and physical acts directed at someone respectively. Smith (2009) states that, an assault is “an attempt to commit a battery upon another person or…any unlawful act, threat, or menacing conduct which causes another person to reasonably believe that he or she is in danger of receiving an immediate battery” (p.5). Thus, a violent threat of an impending battery constitutes assault. Moreover, battery is physical act that can cause harm or has potential to cause reasonable harm to a probable victim. In this instance, assault and battery are crimes against persons as they involve intentions and actions aimed at harming others in the society.
For instance, assault and battery usually involves domestic violence where a husband beats his wife due to family issues. A certain family has been experiencing quarrels due to disagreements in formulation of family budget since the husband and wife had different priorities. One day, the husband arrived home late in the night with great fury and beat his wife. Seeing his fury, the wife decided to run away from home and sought refuge in the neighbouring family though she had suffered some injuries. The following morning, the wife came back home very early in the morning thinking that her husband had cooled only to find that he was actually waiting for her with a sword, ready to inflict more harm or even kill her. He threatened to kill her and ran after her across the neighbourhood where she screamed and attracted many people who came to her rescue. From this incident, the husband is guilty of committing assault and battery because his actions qualify both actus reus and mens rea. In terms of actus reus, the husband planned to batter his wife for they had quarrelled before and furthermore he waited to kill her throughout the night after she had ran away. In addition, his actions were mens rea since both the assault and battery were in violation of her rights to life and freedom.
Crimes against Public Order
Crimes against public order are crimes that harass public or cause undue tension in the society. These crimes include incitement, false alarms, and disorderly conduct amongst others. Disorderly conduct is a crime against public order for it disturbs peaceful coexistence of people or peaceful atmosphere of society that gives people sense of safety and assurance of life. According to Davis (2010), Ohio penal code states that, “no person shall recklessly cause inconvenience, annoyance, or alarm to another… by engaging in behaviours such as fighting, making noise, insulting others, hindering movement of public and creating offensive scenarios in the public” (p. 87). The degree of disorderly conduct varies from place to place depending on whether the conduct occurs in presence of police officers, in learning institutions, in political rallies, or as an obstruction of emergency personnel. Moreover, the degree of disorderly conduct depends on persistency of offenders in spite of several warnings from authority. Since disorderly conduct involves fighting, provoking violence, noises, and obstruction of public, it is a crime against public order.
Disorderly conduct is a common phenomenon in political rallies especially when there is an impending general election. In a certain country, there was an incident where leading opposition party planned to disrupt political rally of an incumbent president to weaken his public image and consequently woo his supporters towards the opposition. The opposition leaders plotted to use hooligans to disrupt the political rally of the incumbent president. As presidential procession arrived at venue, the hooligans made demonstrations across the podium shouting, yelling, and heckling at the president and his entourage, which caused public disorder and obstruction consequently. The police swiftly moved in and restored social order by arresting some of the hooligans who behaved disorderly in presence of the president. Robinson and Dubber (2001) argue that, during prosecution, judge found the hooligans guilty of causing public disorder for their actions were actus reus and mens rea (p.9). The disorderly conduct by the hooligans was actus reus because they planned with their respective political leaders to disrupt the political rally. Moreover, their actions constituted mens rea for they violated the law regarding public order.
Conclusion
Examination of different crimes against property, persons, and public order shows that classification of crimes is imperative for justice to prevail to both the offenders and victims. Therefore, there should be different penalties for crimes against property, persons, and public order because if all crimes were similar, it would mean that offenders would receive equal penalties for committing different crimes, which could be quite unfair to criminals who commit minor offenses. I do believe that crimes in one category are more serious than other categories. In this case, crimes against persons are most serious because they may cause loss of lives; and a lost life cannot be replaced. Crimes against property come second in the scale of seriousness for they entail deprivation or destruction of one’s property, which forms critical basis of livelihood. The least in ranking is crimes against public order for they have no serious repercussions to lives and livelihood of the involved people.
References
Arnold, F. (2008). The Elements of a Crime: Actus Reus and Mens Rea. Criminal Law, 6(4), 8-37.
Barker, T. (2009). Crimes in the Society. British Criminal Law, 4, 1-13.
Belbow, B. (2005). Crimes against Property. Texas Criminal Law, 9, 135-146.
Davis, L. (2010). Crimes against Public Order and Morality. Journal of Criminal Law, 23(4), 79-107.
Robinson, P., & Dubber, M. (2001). An Introduction to the Model Penal Code. American Criminal Law, 12, 1-19.
Smith, D. (2009). Criminal Law: Crimes against Persons. Law Enforcement Academy, 5(2), 1-27.