Based on criminal law, crimes are offences from the social order. In keeping law jurisdictions, there’s a legitimate fiction that crimes disturb the peace from the sovereign. Government officials, as agents from the sovereign, have the effect of the prosecution of offenders. Hence, the criminal law “complaintant” may be the sovereign, which in practical terms means the monarch or even the people.

The main purpose of criminal law is deterrence and punishment, that can be a of civil law is individual compensation. Criminal offences contain two distinct elements the physical act (the actus reus, guilty act) and also the requisite mental condition that the act is performed (the mens rea, guilty mind). For instance, in murder the ‘actus reus may be the illegal killing of the person, as the ‘mens rea is malice aforethought (the intention to kill or cause grievous injuries). The criminal law also details the defenses that defendants would bring to reduce or negate their liability (criminal responsibility) and specifies the punishment which can be inflicted. Criminal law neither needs a victim, nor a victim’s consent, to prosecute an offender. In addition, a justice can happen within the objections from the victim and also the consent from the victim isn’t a defense in many crimes.

Criminal law in many jurisdictions in the most popular and civil law traditions is split into two fields:

* Criminal procedure regulates the procedure for addressing violations of criminal law

* Substantive criminal law details the phrase, and punishments for, various crimes.

Criminal law distinguishes crimes from civil wrongs for example tort or breach of contract. Criminal law has been seen a method of controlling the behaviour of people and groups with regards to societal norms in particular whereas civil law is aimed mainly in the relationship between private individuals as well as their legal rights and obligations underneath the law. Although a lot of ancient legal systems didn’t define a among civil and criminal law, in England there is little difference before the codification of criminal law happened within the late nineteenth century. In many U.S. law schools, the fundamental course in criminal law relies upon the British common criminal law of 1750 (with a few minor American modifications such as the clarification of mens rea within the Model Penal Code).