Topic summary
Criminality
Extracted from the Wikipedia article Crime.
Definition
The exact definition of crime is a philosophical issue without an agreed upon answer. Fields such as law, politics, sociology, and psychology define crime in different ways. Crimes may be variously considered as wrongs against natural persons, legal persons, against the community, or against the state. The criminality of an action is dependent on its context; acts of violence will be seen as crimes in many circumstances but as permissible or desirable in others. Crime was historically seen as a manifestation of evil, but this has been superseded by modern criminal theories.