Types of crime

You probably can recall a time when you accidentally took someone else's pen and forgot to give it back. Do you consider this a crime? Although it was likely an accident, technically, it is a crime. Theft, to be exact. As it's not a serious crime and an accident, it's likely that you didn't get punished for it, and if you did, the punishment would be minor. There are different types of punishments depending on the severity of the crime. Let's explore the different types of crimes deemed punishable by the judicial system.

• First of all, we will address the different types of crime and discuss some examples.
• We will then go into more detail about white-collar crime, cybercrime, and prevention.
• Finally, we will address types of hate crime and types of victimless crime.

Fig. 1: The type and severity of a punishment determine how a person is punished.

Different Types of Crime

When you think of crime, your mind probably jumps to extreme types, such as murder, robbing banks, and kidnapping, to name a few, but there are several other types of crime that aren't as severe as these examples. The severity of the crime committed will determine the severity of the punishment that the offender will receive. Let's take a look at some different types of crime.

Types of Hate Crime

One reason we may assume is hate when we think of the reason why someone may commit a crime against someone. Especially when the victim suffers a lot, imagine someone was seriously hurt in a fight where they're fighting for their life. The offender likely committed the crime because of hate. Usually, when this happens, the police get involved and ask the victim if they have any enemies, highlighting that violent crimes are usually hate crimes.

There are different types of hate crimes, some serious hate crimes might be violent in nature, such as assault or even murder, but there are also less extreme hate crimes which may include vandalising the victims' personal property, for example.

Violent Crime

Violent crime, as you can guess from its name, involves the individual causing physical harm or even the death of another person.

Sub-types of violent crimes include:

• Murder
• Assault
• Grievous bodily harm
• Hate crimes

Current violent crime statistics, such as those from the CSEW (Crime Survey for England and Wales), reveal that approximately 1.5 million violent crimes were committed from March 2021 to March 2022. There was no significant decrease in violent crimes but significantly fewer victims. Despite lockdown regulations during this period due to COVID, why wasn't there a decrease in violent crimes? And what does this say about our existing judicial system?

Sexual Crime

The keyword in this type of crime is consent. Sexual crimes are crimes in which a victim is forced to carry out a sexual act against their will. When someone is unaware of the perpetrator's intentions and actions, this is also an example of a sexual crime. An example is taking inappropriate images without the person's knowledge or of an underage person.

Sexual crimes may fall under a type of violent crime, but they are seen as a different type of crime.

Some types of sexual crimes include:

• Indecent assault
• Sexual assault
• Rape
• Trafficking

Drug Related Crime

Drug crime affects different areas of life. It is not limited to those rich or poor.

Drug trafficking and production are often associated with or controlled by organised crime and drug cartels. But remember that it is only illegal substances that are considered criminal offences, usually due to unsafe practices, unsafe bodily effects, and lack of control - pharmacies selling drugs is not a criminal act unless they're selling illicit goods.

Examples of potential criminal offences related to drugs include:

• Possession with intent to supply illegal drugs
• Possession and use of illicit drugs
• Production of drugs

Regarding drug-related crimes, we need to account for cultural differences.

Anti-Social Crime

Anit-social behaviour is an infamous crime within the UK and other countries.

A few examples of anti-social behavioural crimes include:

• Vandalism

• Verbal abuse

• Neighbour intimidation

• Harassment

• Creating nuisances such as noise

Pranks that children play, such as throwing rocks at other people's houses, are actually a form of crime, specifically an anti-social crime known as vandalism.

Statistics suggest that anti-social crime seems to be a more apparent problem in younger than older people.

Acquisitive Crime

As the name suggests, acquisitive crime is when an individual gains something through illegal means.

Examples of acquisitive crimes include:

• Theft
• Burglary
• Fraud
• Money laundering, a sub-type of this, is known as white-collar crime.

White Collar Type of Crime

White-collar crimes are types of crimes often associated with the middle class (i.e. the 'white collar' group of society).

Often, the motivation behind white-collar crimes is to avoid losing money, property or any kind of asset.

Common examples of 'white-collar' crimes include:

• Corporate fraud: this may involve falsifying financial information, embezzlement, or even insider trading.

• Money Laundering: gaining large amounts of money via illegal means.

Fig. 2: white collar crimes involve corporate fraud and money laundering.

Types of Victimless Crime

When we look at all the types of crimes described above, the thing they have in common is that there is a victim, i.e. someone gets caught. But what about the types of crime that have no victims?

Some examples of victimless crimes are:

• Trespassing
• Recreational drug use
• Prostitution

Even though these crimes don't hurt anyone else, they are still breaking the law. The punishment for victimless types of crime tends to be less severe than for crimes that cause harm to others.

Cyber Crime and Prevention

With the modernisation of society, everything has become available on the internet, and we now use the internet in our everyday life. Although the internet has made life easier for us, it does not come without its problems. Crimes that are committed using the internet are called cyber crimes. Cybercrime is one of the most common yet most difficult crimes to prevent.

Many have become victims of crimes in which their identities may have been stolen. Bank accounts may have been accessed, may have been harassed on the internet, such as on social media, or someone may have hacked into their electronic devices.

Many new techniques have been created to prevent cyber crimes, such as developing firewalls, frequent reminders to change passwords, setting up security questions and additional security features. Despite these, cybercrime still remains a prevalent issue.