Blameless crime

In order to understand the operation of the criminal justice process it is necessary first to consider the substantive criminal law because the criminal justice system can only respond to those who transgress it. The definition of crime is not only a concern for criminal lawyers but sets the boundaries of criminology. What constitutes criminal behaviour is particularly important when the criminological analysis is theoretical as forms of culpable and harmful behaviour that are not defined as criminal tend to escape criminological study on the basis of legalistic, and often arbitrary, definitions. A further complication is that the criminal law