Crime and punishment

Crime is defined as a behavior against law. A person who does something which is against law and should be blamed for a crime is called a culprit or a criminal. A culprit is just one person. Organize group of criminals is called a gang. Gangster is a member of such group. Somebody who helps a commite a crime is accomplice. On the other hand a victim is who is harmed by crime. There are different types of crime. The first is petty crime. It is the least serious. It is stealing of small things like pickpockets, shoplifting, car-theft. To steal something is to take something which belongs someone else, secretly and without permission, thing you don´t own and don´t pay for. The person who steals is a thief. There are different types of stealing. Burglary is when somebody enter your house in order to steal something. Robbery is when we talk about banks. The person who commits robbery is called robber. When there is robbery using guns we call it armed robbery. To mug something is to attack and rob him. The person is called mugger.

The second is white-collar crime. This is crime of bankers, politicians and generally speaking the crime of people who wear white shirts, people from high society. Corruption, embezzlement, frauds, forgery, monkey business and money laundering come under this type of crime. Money laundering means to transfer money obtained illegally from dirty business to foreign banks or respectable business to disguise its source. To libel is to write something which is untrue about somebody so that other people will have bad opinion of them. To black mail is when somebody wants to get money from someone to telling him that he does something bad. Bribery is very common in our country. It seems to me as if the people always get away with everything. The third type is blody crime. The most serious crime is to kill somebody on purpose. Culprits are indict for crime. A place where a trial is held is called a court. The highest power in the court is a judge. His responsibility is to listen to about things in court and control it and sometimes decides what punishment to give somebody when is found guilty. The second highest power is jury. It is a group of people who listen to the facts about a crime and decides whether someone is guilty or not guilty.

The person who charged is prosecutor and his opposite is defence counsel. A witness testify or depose what he knows about crime. Before that he has to take an oath. When he lies he commits a crime called perjury. The jury has to reach a verdict of guilty. You can appeal against this verdict and it can be accepted or rejected. When the jury accuse for do something but he is innocence it is called miscarriage of justice. When someone is convicted of a crime he must serve a sentence. They can sentence you for some years, to life, the capital punishment or death penalty. But in lot of country was banned. The most common crime in Slovakia is corruption, mugging and car-theft. We have got a problem with organized crime such as mafia. They concentrate on money extortion and money laundering.