crime
(criminal law) an act punishable by law; usually considered an evil act
Research draft, second pass
A second pass drafted this model: the structure a model of this thing needs, and what is known about it in the world. The line under this one says how the second half was obtained - researched against sources, or recalled without web access, in which case nothing here was read anywhere and every claim is a lead to verify. Unreviewed either way.
recalled by Codex without web access - no source was read
Researched by: Codex
Purpose and description
Enable an AI agent to assess whether specified conduct may constitute crime under an identified legal framework, distinguish allegations from established outcomes, and identify the conditions governing further action.
In criminal law, a crime is an act or omission that applicable law defines as a criminal offence and makes punishable, subject to the required elements of liability and any applicable defences, whether or not it is generally regarded as morally evil.
It can be Compare described conduct with the elements of a named offence while recording missing information and competing interpretations.; Trace a proposed criminal classification to the applicable legal authority and its temporal and territorial limits.; Separate reports, allegations, evidence, charges, and adjudicated outcomes in agent-generated accounts.; Identify potentially relevant defences, exceptions, and alternative classifications for qualified review.; Record affected interests and reported harm independently of whether liability has been established.; Determine what additional evidence, legal interpretation, or institutional authority is needed before a proposed response can proceed..
Distinguishing features
Identify a criminal-law basis applicable to the conduct, place, and time; disapproval or perceived evil alone does not establish the classification.
Identify whether the record concerns an offence type, an alleged occurrence, or an authoritative finding; these are different objects of assessment.
Map the conduct to the elements of a specified offence rather than inferring crime solely from an adverse outcome.
Check whether the relevant legal framework classifies the matter as criminal, civil, administrative, or overlapping; the presence of a penalty alone is insufficient for the model to decide.
Keep legal criminality separate from moral evaluation and experienced harm so that disagreement about criminalisation remains expressible.
Scope
+ The jurisdiction, applicable time, and legal authority under which conduct is classified as criminal
+ Offence elements, required mental states, and applicable liability conditions
+ Acts, omissions, consequences, and forms of participation relevant to a specified offence
+ Allegations, supporting and conflicting evidence, and authoritative determinations
+ Defences, exceptions, and conditions affecting criminal liability
+ Affected interests, reported harms, and constraints on responses to suspected or established crime
- Complete models of courts, police, prisons, and criminal justice institutions
- Civil wrongs, administrative violations, and moral wrongdoing except where their boundaries intersect criminal classification
- Comprehensive models of particular offence families such as theft or homicide
- General theories of criminal motivation and population-level crime prediction
- Full investigation, trial, sentencing, and rehabilitation workflows
- The identity or character of a person treated as inherently criminal
Characteristics
- Object of assessment
- Offence type | alleged occurrence | adjudicated occurrence Prevents a definition of prohibited conduct from being confused with proof that particular conduct occurred.
- Applicable legal framework
- Identified jurisdiction, legal authority, provision, version, and period of applicability Makes the criminal classification traceable and sensitive to differences across places and times.
- Conduct form
- Act | omission | combined conduct | disputed or unknown; described against the particular offence Directs attention to what was done or not done and, for an omission, any legally relevant duty.
- Element assessment
- For each required element: unassessed | supported | disputed | unsupported | authoritatively determined Exposes the reasoning behind an assessment instead of presenting a single unexplained crime label.
- Mental-state requirement
- Requirement and terminology from the applicable law, including whether a mental state is required for each element Avoids assuming that intent is always required or that the same mental-state vocabulary applies everywhere.
- Attributed participation
- Actor linked to alleged conduct and a jurisdiction-specific basis of individual or organisational liability Distinguishes responsibility for conduct from proximity, affiliation, or association.
- Procedural status
- Reported | under investigation | charged | adjudicated | under review | closed, with authority, date, and outcome where applicable Keeps claims, procedural steps, and determinations distinct without assuming a universal sequence.
- Recorded harm
- Source-specific measures such as monetary loss with currency, injury assessment, affected-person count, or duration; unknown where unestablished Allows harm to be assessed without treating it as automatic proof of an offence or collapsing different harms into one score.
- Liability qualifications
- Potentially applicable | raised | disputed | accepted | rejected | unresolved, separately for each defence or exception Preserves matters that may change an otherwise plausible classification.
Analytical facets
- substance
- activity
- origin
- conceptual
- agency
- inert
- mobility
- not-applicable
- scale
- not-applicable
- affordances
- observable
Also called
+114
Where this came from
oewn:2024 · CC BY 4.0
Drafted structure
Bundle to layer to finding to question, as the second pass will find it: 6 bundles · 11 layers · 19 findings · 29 questions.
Criminalisation and legal boundaries Establishes the legal sense of crime and the framework in which a classification is proposed.
The registry's reference to evil must not make moral condemnation a substitute for a criminal-law basis.
Applicable prohibition
Locates the authority that defines the offence and determines its applicability.
Legal basis and applicability
Record the proposed offence, authoritative legal text, relevant version, and reasons it applies to the conduct.
- Which legal authority defines the proposed offence, and which version applied at the relevant time? provenance
- What territorial, personal, or other jurisdictional connection makes that authority applicable? boundary
Legal and normative classifications
Separates criminal classification from adjacent legal categories and competing normative accounts.
Criminality, harm, and wrongfulness
Record how the relevant authority classifies the conduct and attribute any competing moral, social, or criminological interpretation.
- What establishes that this classification is criminal rather than solely civil, administrative, or moral? boundary
- Which identified sources or schools dispute the criminalisation or define crime differently, and on what grounds? definition
Conduct and offence elements Connects a bounded occurrence to the requirements of a particular offence.
A crime assessment needs an explicit account of conduct and element satisfaction rather than resemblance to an offence label.
Occurrence and conduct
Identifies the conduct being assessed and its relevant boundaries.
Act, omission, and occurrence boundary
Record the alleged act or omission, its timing, and the basis for treating related conduct as one or several occurrences.
- What specific act or omission is alleged, and what identifies its time, place, and duration? definition
- If the allegation concerns an omission, what duty to act is asserted and where is that duty established? provenance
Element-by-element assessment
Tests the requirements of the offence against the available account.
Required circumstances, results, and completion
Record required conduct, circumstances, consequences, causal connections, and any distinction between completed and incomplete offences.
- Which elements must be established, and what supports or challenges each one? definition
- Does the proposed classification require a result or causal connection, or rely on a separately defined incomplete offence? boundary
Responsibility and liability qualifications Examines why responsibility is attributed to an actor and what may qualify that attribution.
Conduct, association, and harmful outcomes cannot by themselves resolve every question of criminal responsibility.
Actor and mental state
Connects each actor to a legally specified basis of liability.
Participation and culpability
Record the alleged role, the applicable participation rule, and any mental-state requirement attached to the elements.
- What conduct and legal rule connect this actor to the alleged offence as a direct participant or through another form of liability? provenance
- What mental state, if any, is required for each relevant element, and how is it supported or disputed? definition
Defences, exceptions, and capacity
Preserves legally relevant qualifications to the proposed liability.
Qualification assessment
Record potentially relevant defences, exceptions, and capacity conditions with their legal basis and assessment status.
- Which defences, exceptions, or capacity rules may apply to these facts under the identified law? boundary
- What information and applicable assessment rules are needed to resolve each qualification? action
Evidence and determination Maintains the distinction between a claim about crime and an established legal outcome.
An agent must not transform a report, charge, or uncertain inference into a finding of guilt.
Claims and evidential support
Tracks the origin and limits of claims about the occurrence and its elements.
Claim-to-evidence traceability
Associate material claims with their sources, contradictions, and unresolved gaps.
- Who makes each material claim, and which evidence supports or contradicts it? provenance
- Which apparent corroborations are independent, and which repeat or derive from the same account? provenance
Procedural and adjudicative status
Records what a competent authority has decided and the limits of that decision.
Authoritative outcome and review
Record the current procedural position, any decision, its scope, and outstanding review.
- What is the latest verified procedural status or outcome, and which authority and record establish it? provenance
- What did the decision determine, under which standard, and what remains unresolved or subject to review? boundary
Harm and permissible response Relates the alleged offence to affected interests and conditions governing intervention.
Understanding crime requires attention to consequences while keeping response authority distinct from an agent's assessment.
Affected interests and consequences
Separates the interests protected by an offence from harms reported in a particular occurrence.
Protected interest and observed harm
Record the stated protected interest, affected parties, observed harm, and uncertainty in attribution or measurement.
- What interest is this offence understood to protect, and which authority or interpretation supports that account? definition
- What harm or exposure to harm is reported, how was it measured, and how securely is it connected to the conduct? measurement
Response authority and prerequisites
Identifies what must be established before a contemplated response is available.
Authorised next action
Record the contemplated response, responsible actor, legal prerequisites, and unresolved conditions.
- Which person or institution has authority to take the proposed action at the current procedural stage? action
- What legal thresholds, procedural protections, or unresolved facts must be addressed before that action may proceed? action
Evidence and external alignment What the world already says about this thing, gathered so the model can be checked against it.
A model that cannot be lined up against existing standards, identifiers and practice cannot be adopted by anyone who already uses them.
Reported evidence
Findings from the breadth pass, kept separate from the structural claims.
Check these first
Recalled without web access and unsourced; every item is a lead to verify.
- This covers the criminal-law sense, not figurative uses of 'crime' for an outrage or serious mistake.
- The listed kinds are common, overlapping groupings rather than a universal legal taxonomy.
- These are recalled references, not consulted sources; a researcher should verify jurisdiction, applicable date, treaty scope and statistical classification version before operational use.
- Which of these check these first hold for the sense of crime this model covers, and on what evidence? provenance
Kinds and varieties
Recalled without web access and unsourced; every item is a lead to verify.
- Offences against the person
- Property offences
- Sexual offences
- Public-order offences
- Economic and financial offences
- Offences against the administration of justice
- Which of these kinds and varieties hold for the sense of crime this model covers, and on what evidence? provenance
Identifiers and schemes
Recalled without web access and unsourced; every item is a lead to verify.
- International Classification of Crime for Statistical Purposes (ICCS) - Hierarchical numerical category codes - Developed by the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime for statistical classification; codes identify categories of criminal conduct, not individual incidents or universally applicable legal offences.
- Jurisdiction-specific legal citation - Jurisdiction, statute or code title, section or article, and applicable version - Identifies the legal provision defining an offence; some jurisdictions also recognize common-law offences.
- Which of these identifiers and schemes hold for the sense of crime this model covers, and on what evidence? provenance
Standards and regulation
Recalled without web access and unsourced; every item is a lead to verify.
- Domestic criminal statutes and codes, enacted by the relevant legislature, define offences and penalties within their scope.
- International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, adopted by the United Nations General Assembly: Articles 14 and 15 address criminal proceedings, legality and non-retroactivity.
- Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court, adopted by states at the Rome diplomatic conference, defines crimes within the Court's jurisdiction and conditions for exercising that jurisdiction.
- International Classification of Crime for Statistical Purposes, developed by the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime, provides a statistical classification rather than a criminal code.
- Which of these standards and regulation hold for the sense of crime this model covers, and on what evidence? provenance
Real-world use
Recalled without web access and unsourced; every item is a lead to verify.
- Determining whether alleged conduct satisfies the elements of an offence and whether a defence applies
- Classifying allegations for investigation, charging and prosecution
- Adjudicating criminal liability and imposing legally authorized sanctions
- Producing crime statistics and victimization surveys
- Studying victimization, offending patterns and prevention measures
- Which of these real-world use hold for the sense of crime this model covers, and on what evidence? provenance
Typical measurements
Recalled without web access and unsourced; every item is a lead to verify.
- Recorded crime rate - No universal typical range; depends on offence category, reporting, recording rules, population and period - Recorded offences per 100,000 people per year
- Victimization prevalence - 0-100%; observed values depend on offence coverage, surveyed population and reference period - Percent of people or households experiencing at least one covered offence during the reference period
- Which of these typical measurements hold for the sense of crime this model covers, and on what evidence? provenance
Failure modes and hazards
Recalled without web access and unsourced; every item is a lead to verify.
- Equating criminality with moral wrongness: harmful conduct may be lawful, and criminalized conduct may be morally contested.
- Treating an allegation, arrest or charge as proof that a person committed a crime.
- Ignoring omissions, legal duties, required mental elements, defences or jurisdiction-specific rules of liability.
- Treating police-recorded offences as a complete measure of offending despite underreporting and differences in enforcement and recording.
- Comparing crime rates across places or periods without accounting for changes in definitions, counting rules and survey methods.
- Which of these failure modes and hazards hold for the sense of crime this model covers, and on what evidence? provenance
Regional variation
Recalled without web access and unsourced; every item is a lead to verify.
- The same conduct may be criminal, administratively prohibited or lawful in different jurisdictions or at different times.
- Severity classifications differ: felony and misdemeanor are used in some systems, while others use different categories or procedural distinctions.
- Rules for corporate liability, criminal responsibility by age, mental elements and available defences vary by jurisdiction.
- Which of these regional variation hold for the sense of crime this model covers, and on what evidence? provenance
Neighbouring kinds and how to tell them apart
Recalled without web access and unsourced; every item is a lead to verify.
- Tort - A tort grounds civil liability; a crime grounds criminal liability, although the same conduct can constitute both.
- Moral wrong - Moral wrongness depends on ethical judgment; criminality depends on applicable criminal law.
- Deviance - Deviance violates social norms, which need not be legally enforceable or criminal.
- Administrative violation - An administrative violation is handled under an administrative enforcement regime; its boundary with criminal punishment depends on the legal system.
- Conviction - A conviction is a legal determination of guilt; a crime is the prohibited conduct whose commission is at issue.
- Which of these neighbouring kinds and how to tell them apart hold for the sense of crime this model covers, and on what evidence? provenance
What the second pass must settle
- Which comparative legal sources best support a shared vocabulary for offence elements, mental states, defences, and procedural outcomes without erasing jurisdictional differences?
- How should the model represent competing claims about whether a nominally administrative or regulatory prohibition is criminal in substance?
- Which legal, sociological, and critical definitions of crime should be represented as attributed alternatives to the registry's criminal-law sense?
- What rules should identify one occurrence across multiple alleged offences, continuing conduct, and proceedings in several jurisdictions?
- Which existing Vercy world model, if any, already owns this concept and should receive the registry link instead of a separate publication?