THE PRISONER AT THE BAR
WHAT IS CRIME?
A crime is any act or omission to act punishable as such by law. It is difficult, if not impossible, to devise any closer definition. Speaking broadly, crimes are certain acts, usually wrongful, which are regarded as sufficiently dangerous or harmful to society to be forbidden under pain of punishment. The general relation of crimes to wrongs as a whole is sometimes illustrated by a circle having two much smaller circles within it. The outer circle represents wrongful acts in the aggregate; the second, wrongful acts held by law to be torts, that is to say, infractions of private rights for which redress may be sought in the civil courts, and the smallest or inner circle, acts held to be so injurious to the public as to be punishable as crimes.
This does well enough for the purpose of illustrating the relative proportion of crimes to torts or wrongful acts in general, and, if a tiny dot be placed in the centre of the bull's-eye to represent those crimes which are actually punished, one gets an excellent idea of how infinitely small a number of these serve to keep the whole social fabric in order and sustain the majesty of the law. But the inference might naturally be drawn that whatever was a crime must also be a tort or at least a wrong, which, while true in the majority of instances, is not necessarily the case in all. In a certain sense crimes are always wrongs or, at least, wrong, but only in the sense of being infractions of law are they always wrongs or wrong.
The word wrong being the antithesis of the word right, and carrying with it generally some ethical or moral significance, will vary in its meaning according to the ideas of the individual who makes use of it. Indeed, it is conceivable that the only really right thing to do under certain circumstances would be to commit an act designated by law as a crime. So, conversely, while a wrong viewed as an infraction of the laws of God is a sin, that which is universally held sinful is by no means always a crime. Speaking less broadly, a wrong is an infraction of a right belonging to another, which he derives from the law governing the society of which he is a member. Many wrongs are such that he may sue and obtain redress therefor in the courts. But it by no means follows that every crime involves the infraction of a private right or the commission of a tort. Thus "perjury" and most crimes against the State are not torts at all. It will thus be seen that no accurate definition of a crime can be given save that it is an act or omission which the State punishes as such, and that technically the word carries with it no imputation or implication of sin, vice, iniquity, or in a broad sense even of wrong. The act may or may not be repugnant to our ideas of right. Numerically considered, only a minority of crimes have any ethical significance whatever, the majority being designated by the law itself as mala prohibita, rather than mala in se.
It is the duty of a prosecutor to see that infractions of the criminal law are punished and to represent the public in all proceedings had for that purpose, but, in view of what has just been said, it will be observed that his duties do not necessarily involve familiarity with vice, violence or even sin. The crimes he is called upon to prosecute may be disgusting, depraved and wicked, or they may be, and frequently are, interesting, ingenious, amusing or, possibly (though not probably), commendable. For example, a man who chastises the foul slanderer of a young woman's character may have technically committed an assault of high degree, yet if he does so in the proper spirit, in a suitable place, and makes the offender smart sufficiently, he deserves the thanks and congratulations of all decent men and honest women. Yet, indubitably, he has committed a crime, although, thanks to our still lingering spirit of chivalry, he would never be stamped by any jury as a criminal.
A prosecutor is frequently asked if he does not find that his experience has a "hardening" effect.