Elements of Crime
This is the total number of elements of a crime required for a conviction.
What is 7?
A person held at gunpoint and forced to speed would use this defense.
What is Duress?
The best legal definition of crime is a violation of criminal law without these two things.
What are defense or excuse?
This is the primary source of crime statistics administered by the FBI.
What is the Uniform Crime Report (UCR)?
A factory owner knowing equipment is dangerous but operating anyway, resulting in death, demonstrates actus reus through this.
What is Criminal Negligence?
This Latin term refers to the "guilty act" - intentional conduct or negligence.
What is Actus Reus?
If a lawyer argues their client is missing the element of mens rea (guilty mind), they are likely using this defense.
What is Insanity?
The failure to prohibit behaviors that arguably should be prohibited (like cyberbullying or insider trading) is known as this.
What is Undercriminalization?
This survey asks respondents if they have been victims of crime in the past 6 months.
What is the National Crime Victimization Survey (NCVS)?
Murder is mala in se (wrong in itself), while jaywalking is this (wrong because prohibited).
What is Mala Prohibita?
This element refers to the criminal intent or a "guilty state of mind."
What is Mens Rea?
There are this many total legal defenses in criminal responsibility.
What is 6?
This term describes the failure to routinely enforce prohibitions against certain behaviors like jaywalking.
What is Nonenforcement?
Crime rates are a measure of crimes expressed as the number of crimes per unit of this.
What is Population?
To prove causation, one must show legally forbidden harm and this other element.
What is Actus Reus?
The element of "Legality" requires that harm must be legally forbidden and the law must not be this (meaning retroactive).
What is Ex Post Facto?
A city official repeatedly offers a manager money to approve a permit until they finally accept. The manager might claim this defense.
What is Entrapment?
Behavior that violates norms or social mores is the best definition for this type of crime definition.
What is the Social Definition of Crime?
This is one reason crime statistics are considered "unreliable" (from the list: behavior wrongly labeled, crimes undetected, or inaccurate recording).
What is "All of the above"?
If a state passes a law making abortion illegal after it was performed, and tries to punish past acts, it violates this principle.
What is Ex Post Facto?
This element is present when both actus reus and mens rea occur together.
What is Concurrence?
This defense is used when a crime is committed to prevent a greater harm (e.g., breaking a window to save someone from a fire).
What is Necessity?
The "Dark Figure of Crime" refers to this specific group of offenses.
What are crimes committed but not reported to the police?
The NCVS consistently shows higher crime rates than the UCR because it captures these.
What are unreported crimes?
A person accidentally starts a fire in their home (the act), but then decides afterward to let it burn to collect insurance money (the intent). They cannot be convicted of arson because the act and intent did not happen at the same time, meaning this specific element of crime is missing.
What is Concurrence?