Crimes
What is Crime?
Crime is the breach of a rule or law for which a punishment may be prescribed by some governing authority or force, generally through a court of law. Courts of law are presided over by a Judge. In common law countries, judges usually operate under the adversarial system of justice. At the trial level a single judge usually presides over court proceedings (there are some narrow exceptions). The professional background of Common law judges are generally appointed or elected after careers as practicing attorneys or lawyers, although many receive brief educational programs specific to judging once taking the bench. Judges are frequently drawn from the ranks of barristers, as opposed to solicitors, where a distinction is made between the two as separate legal professions. Many U.S. states permit non-lawyers to serve as justices of the peace or as inferior jurisdiction judges in rural areas, but this practice is generally limited to less serious criminal offences' or in the case of English common law cases that are classified as summary offences and small claims.
The legal system of England, is the basis of common law legal systems throughout the world (as opposed to civil law or pluralist systems in other countries, such as Scottish law). It was exported to Commonwealth countries under the expansion of the British Empire, and it forms the basis of the jurisprudence of most of those countries. English law prior to the American revolution is still part of the law of the United States, except in Louisiana, and provides the basis for many American legal traditions and policies, though it has no superseding jurisdiction.
In the US legal system Federal judges are not required by law to be attorneys, but it has been long established that the President traditionally appoints only attorneys to the federal bench. While in countries like England and Australia Judges are appointed from the ranks of Barrister. In the common law system, when there is a jury trial in the trial courts, the jury generally decides questions of fact (guilty or not guilty or in Torts, whether a party was negligent, etc.) while a single judge decides questions of law (under common-law systems, one of the judge's most important powers is to craft jury instructions). In a trial before a judge, sometimes called a bench trial, a single judge decides issues of both law and fact. Outside the United States, only a very narrow category of civil cases are tried before juries and usually criminal cases are tried before juries only in more serious cases.
In the United States, cases where a jury is not available are the exception, rather than the norm, even in relatively minor civil and criminal matters. In United States practice, the right to a jury usually hinges on historical distinctions made between law and equity in England prior to the adoption of the United States Constitution. Because both civil and criminal procedure in common law systems developed in the context of a system where the ultimate decisions were usually deferred to a jury (even though this is often not the case outside the United States in civil cases), common law judges are limited in their power to resolve matters prior to a full trial, even if they have all information that they the authorised person.
The word crime originates from the Latin crimen (genitive criminis), from the Latin root cernō and Greek κρινω = "I judge". Originally it meant "charge (in law), guilt, accusation." Informal relationships and sanctions have been deemed insufficient to create and maintain a desired social order, resulting in formalized systems of social control by the government, or more broadly, the State. With the institutional and legal machinery at their disposal, agents of the State are able to compel individuals to conform to behavioural codes and punish those that do not. Various mechanisms are employed to regulate behaviour, including rules codified into laws, policing people to ensure they comply with those laws, and other policies and practices designed to prevent crime. In addition are remedies and sanctions, and collectively these constitute a criminal justice system.
Not all breaches of the law, however, are considered crimes, for example, breaches of contract and other civil law offences. The label of "crime" and the accompanying social stigma are normally reserved for those activities that are injurious to the general population or the State, including some that cause serious loss or damage to individuals. In other words there is a notion of harm to other that needs some sort of restitution and punishment.
The label is intended to assert an hegemony of a dominant population, or to reflect a consensus of condemnation for the identified behaviour and to justify a punishment imposed by the State, in the event that an accused person is tried and convicted of a crime. The term "crime" can also technically refer to the use of criminal law to regulate minor infractions, such as traffic violations. Usually, the perpetrator of the crime is a natural person, but in some jurisdictions and in some moral environments, corporations are also considered to have the capability of committing crimes. The State also commonly commits crimes, although this is underrepresented in the justice system.
Generally, to prove that a crime has been committed the prosecution must prove beyond a reasonable doubt that the accused had a guilty mind or Mens Rea and that the illegal act was carried out actus reanus.
So what is environmental crime
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