The Extent to Which Crime is Based on Morality

The Extent to Which Crime is Based on Morality

Lord Justice Denning wrote that:

"Ever since the time of Henry I, in order that an act should be

punishable, it must be morally blameworthy. It must be a sin."

The definition of a sin is a comparatively clear one, and since St

Thomas Aquinas, has been regarded as any act against Gods law, and

because of the very close association between political structures and

religious doctrines, law and morals have had a close relationship. But

this is not the end of the argument. How germane is the relationship

between crime and our oldest and most orthodox source of morality?

We hold property to be very important in our society, not only the

acquisition of it, but also the keeping of it once acquired. But in

the book of Mathew chapter 19 verse 24, we are tolled that it is

"easier for a camel to pass through the eye of a needle than for a

rich man to enter the kingdom of God."

So putting judgements aside for a moment, what sort of rules are

criminal rules. Some rules require that we do something, others that

we do not do a particular thing. Criminal laws are predominantly the

'do not´ type. Negative rules in that they prohibit certain activities

because they offend certain dominant values within a group, or because

they are simply an affront to basic social existence. But how

'dominant´ must the value be, before it is 'wrong´ to go against it.

With so many conflicting moralities in our various cultures, which of

them when transgressed leads to sanctions. Rape is bad and is a crime,

but adultery is also bad, and in the eyes of certain religious groups

a worse transgression, but it is not a...

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...ed would place us all in jeopardy. There is a greater

wrong being punished than the loss of a video recorder. To steal is

morally wrong.

But society´s sanction against crime is its self only moral if the

crimes are committed with free choice. This makes the sanction just.

So laws are not rooted in some common morality, or indeed in any

common political or religious foundation, but against a constantly

moving social and economic set of conditions.

So the test of a crime against immorality may be a helpful one. Some

crimes are 'wrong´ as in murder or rape and theft, but lying, it may

be immoral, but it is not a crime. Many summary offences are crimes,

but are they immoral. When we compare adultery to putting your vehicle

licence disk on the wrong side of the windscreen the test of morality

becomes less helpful.