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Summary A Southern African Perspective on Fundamental Criminology - Krm 110
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- Krm 110
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- University Of Pretoria (UP)
this is a summary of chapter 1 and chapter 2 for krm 110
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KRM 110SEMESTER TEST 1
Chapter 1
Crime:
According to Harding, Davies and Mair it is problematic to define crime as many definitions
have a religious basis.
Students of law: see crime as an act that contravenes or breaks a law.
Studied human science: see crime as behaviour that is harmful to the individual and the
society.
Theologians: consider crime to be sinful and against the good order of society and will use
religious guidelines.
Juridical definitions of crime:
A crime is any action that is prohibited by law.
Crime is from the Latin word “crimen” = judgement, accusation, and defence.
The juridical definition explains crime as an illegal action committed by an individual who can
both be blamed and punished by authorities.
Van Zyl defines crime as “the illegal, wilful, human action that constitutes a transgression of the
law, to which is linked sentencing by a court of law after hearing and conviction.
Crime consists of 2 elements:
Actus reus {guilty action} is the physical element of the crime. This element may be failure to
do something e.g. Not submitting income tax or assaulting someone.
Mens rea {guilty mind} mental element involved in deciding to commit a crime.
A mental decision has to be followed by an action before it can be seen as a crime.
Mens rea and actus reus have to occur together to form the body of crime called corpus
delicti.
Crime can be divided into 2 categories namely statutory crime and common-law crime.
Statutory crime:
Crimes that have been codified (recorded) and published by the government in statutes of law
or legislation e.g. National Road Traffic Act 93 of 1996 s65 (2)
Punishment may be a fine or imprisonment.
, Common-law crime:
Crimes such as murder, theft, and robbery
Has not been codified or published by the government in any statutes of law or government
gazette.
These acts have been considered crimes for centuries and are identified and defined by the
Roman-Dutch legal system, which is the source of the South African law.
Robbery is a violent form of theft.
Thus = common law is the set of laws not made by parliament or any level of government
Non-juridical definitions of crime and status offence:
Laws that address specific actions as wrongful is one way to construct what the populace
deems a crime.
Van der walt, cronjè and smit define crime as “an antisocial action that involves a threat,
violation or infringement of the stability and security of society and its members”.
Bartol and Bartol define crime as “conduct or failure to act in violation of the law forbidding or
commanding it, and for which a range of possible penalties exist upon conviction”.
From a non-juridical perspective, criminologists should also focus on behaviours that violate
social norms and potentially endanger society.
Status offences: when minors perpetrate such actions (consumption of alcohol and smoking),
the criminal justice system deems it to be illegal as a result of their under-aged status.
The criminologist:
A criminologist is someone whose professional training, occupational role and earnings or
remuneration mainly relate to the application of a scientific approach to the study and analysis
of crime phenomena and criminal behaviour.
Hesselink-Louw: defines a criminologist as a skilled expert in the analysis, examination,
evaluation, assessment and explanation of crime and criminal behaviour, who possesses a
sound balance between theoretical knowledge and practical experience related to criminal
behaviour.
The role of a criminologist:
Wolfgang: prevent, detect and investigate crime and bring criminals to face judicial action, that
is, the criminal trial process in which the guilt of the accused must be proven beyond
reasonable doubt in court
Forensic criminologists:
Criminologists who work in court is referred to as forensic criminologists.
Work by a forensic criminologist refers to the actions of a criminologist collecting, analysing
and presenting evidence in the interest of objective proceedings in the judicial process.
The concept “forensic” indicates that a specialist from a specific discipline is doing court work
in a specific field using scientific methods unique to that discipline.
Forensic criminologist has specific tasks, namely:
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