crime

Definition of Crime

(noun) An act that violates a law and is punishable by an authority through formal sanctions.

Types of Crime

• cybercrime
• felony
• forgery
• fraud
• hate crime
• larceny
• misdemeanor
• murder
• organized crime
• street crime
• vice crime
• victimless crime
• violent crime
• war crime
• white-collar crime

Crime Pronunciation

Pronunciation Usage Guide

Syllabification: crime

Audio Pronunciation

International Phonetic Alphabet

• American English – /kraɪm/
• British English – /krʌɪm/

Usage Notes

• Plural: crimes
• Crime in the United States falls into two categories: crimes against people or crimes against property.
• Also called:
  • criminal offense
  • law-breaking
• An individual who commits a crime is called a (noun) criminal and when something is declared illegal it is (verb) criminalized (also called illegalized) and when the law changes making something no longer a crime it is (verb) decriminalized (also called legalized).

Related Quotations

• “Crime is necessary; it is linked to the fundamental conditions of all social life and, because of that, is useful; for those conditions to which it is bound are themselves indispensable to the normal evolution of morality and law” (Durkheim [1895] 2004:57).
• “We can say that an act is criminal when it offends strong and defined states of the collective consciousness . . . In other words, we must not say that an action offends the common consciousness because it is criminal, but rather that it is criminal because it shocks the common consciousness. We do not condemn it because it is a crime, but it is a crime because we condemn it” (Durkheim [1893] 2004:24).

Related Videos

Additional Information

• Crime and Law Resources – Books, Journals, and Helpful Links
• Politics and Policy Resources – Books, Journals, and Helpful Links
• Word origin of “crime” – Online Etymology Dictionary: etymonline.com
• Becker, Howard S. 1963. Outsiders: Studies in the Sociology of Deviance. New York: Free Press.
• Cavadino, Michael, James Dignan, and George Mair. 2013. The Penal System: An Introduction. 5th ed. Los Angeles: SAGE.
• Cohen, Albert Kircidel. 1955. Delinquent Boys: The Culture of the Gang. New York: Free Press.
• Croall, Hazel. 2011. Crime and Society in Britain. 2nd ed. Harlow: Addison Wesley Longman.
• Foucault, Michel. 1975. Discipline and Punish: The Birth of the Prison. New York: Penguin.
• Garland, David. 1990. Punishment and Modern Society: A Study in Social Theory. Oxford: Clarendon.
• Hester, Stephen, and Peter Eglin. 1992. A Sociology of Crime. London: Routledge.
• Lombroso, Cesare. [1876] 2006. The Criminal Man. Durham, NC: Duke University Press.
• Maguire, Mike, Rodney Morgan, and Robert Reiner, eds. 2002. The Oxford Handbook of Criminology. 3rd ed. Oxford: Clarendon.
• Mars, Gerald. 1982. Cheats at Work. Boston: Allen & Unwin.
• Marsh, Ian, John Cochrane, and Gaynor Melville. 2004. Criminal Justice: An Introduction to Philosophies, Theories and Practice. London: Routledge.
• McLaughlin, Eugene, and John Muncie, eds. 2001. Controlling Crime. 2nd ed. Thousand Oaks, CA: SAGE.
• Newburn, Tim. 2003. Crime and Criminal Justice Policy. 2nd ed. Harlow: Longman.
• Pearson, G. 1983. Hooligan: A History of Respectable Fears. London: Macmillan.
• Peterson, Ruth D., and Lauren Joy Krivo. 2010. Divergent Social Worlds: Neighborhood Crime and the Racial-spatial Divide. New York: Russell Sage Foundation.
• Reiman, Jeffrey H. 2007. The Rich Get Richer and the Poor Get Prison. 8th ed. Boston: Allyn and Bacon.
• Reiner, Robert. 2010. The Politics of the Police. 4th ed. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
• Rusche, Georg, and Otto Kirchheimer. 1939. Punishment and Social Structure. New York: Russell & Russell.
• Smith, David J., and Jeremy Gray. 1985. The Police and People in London: the PSI Report. Aldershot: Gower.
• Taylor, Ian, Paul Walton, and Jock Young. 1975. Critical Criminology. London: Routledge and Kegan Paul.
• Valier, Claire. 2002. Theories of Crime and Punishment. Harlow: Longman.
• Walker, Nigel. 1991. Why Punish? Oxford: Oxford University Press.
• Western, Bruce. 2007. Punishment and Inequality in America. New York: Russell Sage Foundation.
• Young, Jock, and Roger Mathews, eds. 1992. Rethinking Criminology: The Realist Debate. London: SAGE.
• Zimring, Franklin, and Gordon Hawkins. 1997. Crime is Not the Problem: Lethal Violence in America. New York: Oxford University Press.

Related Terms

• criminal justice system
• criminology
• illegal
• law
• nonviolent crime
• penology
• police
• sanction

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References

Durkheim, Émile. [1893] 2004. “The Division of Labour in Society.” Pp. 19–38 in Readings from Emile Durkheim. Rev. ed., edited and translated by K. Thompson. New York: Routledge.

Durkheim, Émile. [1895] 2004. “The Rules of Sociological Method.” Pp. 43–63 in Readings from Emile Durkheim. Rev. ed., edited and translated by K. Thompson. New York: Routledge.

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Cite the Definition of Crime

ASA – American Sociological Association (5th edition)

Bell, Kenton, ed. 2013. “crime.” In Open Education Sociology Dictionary. Retrieved December 2, 2024 (https://sociologydictionary.org/crime/).

APA – American Psychological Association (6th edition)

crime. (2013). In K. Bell (Ed.), Open education sociology dictionary. Retrieved from https://sociologydictionary.org/crime/

Chicago/Turabian: Author-Date – Chicago Manual of Style (16th edition)

Bell, Kenton, ed. 2013. “crime.” In Open Education Sociology Dictionary. Accessed December 2, 2024. https://sociologydictionary.org/crime/.

MLA – Modern Language Association (7th edition)

“crime.” Open Education Sociology Dictionary. Ed. Kenton Bell. 2013. Web. 2 Dec. 2024. <https://sociologydictionary.org/crime/>.