In
law enforcement jargon, a suspect is a known person accused or suspected of committing a
crime. Police and reporters in the
United States often use the word suspect as a jargon when referring to the perpetrator of the offense (perp in dated US slang). However, in official definition, the perpetrator is the robber, assailant,
counterfeiter
To counterfeit means to imitate something authentic, with the intent to steal, destroy, or replace the original, for use in illegal transactions, or otherwise to deceive individuals into believing that the fake is of equal or greater value tha ...
, etc.—the person who committed the crime. The distinction between suspect and perpetrator recognizes that the suspect is not ''known'' to have committed the offense, while the perpetrator—who may not yet have been suspected of the crime, and is thus not necessarily a suspect—is the one who did. The suspect may be a different person from the perpetrator, or there may have been no actual crime, which would mean there is no perpetrator.
A common error in
police report
In legal terminology, a complaint is any formal legal document that sets out the facts and legal reasons (see: cause of action) that the filing party or parties (the plaintiff(s)) believes are sufficient to support a claim against the party ...
s is a
witness description of the suspect (as a witness generally describes a perpetrator, while a
mug shot is of a suspect). Frequently it is stated that police are looking for the suspect, when there is no suspect; the police ''could'' be looking for a suspect, but they are surely looking for the perpetrator, and very often it is impossible to tell from such a police report whether there is a suspect or not.
Possibly because of the misuse of "suspect" to mean "perpetrator", police in the late 20th and early 21st century began to use
person of interest
"Person of interest" is a term used by law enforcement in the United States, Canada, and other countries when identifying someone possibly involved in a criminal investigation who has not been arrested or formally accused of a crime. It has no leg ...
, possible suspect, and even possible person of interest, to mean suspect.
Under the judicial systems of the U.S., once a decision is approved to
arrest
An arrest is the act of apprehending and taking a person into custody (legal protection or control), usually because the person has been suspected of or observed committing a crime. After being taken into custody, the person can be questi ...
a suspect, or bind him over for
trial, either by a
prosecutor
A prosecutor is a legal representative of the prosecution in states with either the common law adversarial system or the Civil law (legal system), civil law inquisitorial system. The prosecution is the legal party responsible for presenting the ...
issuing an
information, a
grand jury
A grand jury is a jury—a group of citizens—empowered by law to conduct legal proceedings, investigate potential criminal conduct, and determine whether criminal charges should be brought. A grand jury may subpoena physical evidence or a pe ...
issuing a
true bill or
indictment, or a
judge
A judge is a person who presides over court proceedings, either alone or as a part of a panel of judges. A judge hears all the witnesses and any other evidence presented by the barristers or solicitors of the case, assesses the credibility an ...
issuing an
arrest warrant
An arrest warrant is a warrant issued by a judge or magistrate on behalf of the state, which authorizes the arrest and detention of an individual, or the search and seizure of an individual's property.
Canada
Arrest warrants are issued by a j ...
, the suspect can then be properly called a
defendant
In court proceedings, a defendant is a person or object who is the party either accused of committing a crime in criminal prosecution or against whom some type of civil relief is being sought in a civil case.
Terminology varies from one jurisdic ...
, or the accused. Only after being
convicted is the suspect properly called the perpetrator.
See also
*
Arguido
''Arguido'' (male, ) or ''arguida'' (female, ), normally translated "named suspect" or "formal suspect", is a status in Portuguese type legal systems, including those of Portugal, Angola and Mozambique.
It is given to a person whom the authoriti ...
*
Criminal
In ordinary language, a crime is an unlawful act punishable by a state or other authority. The term ''crime'' does not, in modern criminal law, have any simple and universally accepted definition,Farmer, Lindsay: "Crime, definitions of", in Can ...
*
Perp walk
A perp walk, walking the perp,The term "perp" is short for "perpetrator", and is commonly used by police departments for those they arrest. It is legally inaccurate since the arrested individual's guilt has not been judicially established at that ...
References
'
Suspect'' Suspicious and Suspect.
{{Criminal procedure
Law enforcement terminology
Criminals by status