| abettor | A person who, with the requisite criminal intent, encourages, promotes, instigates, or stands ready to assist the perpetrator of a crime.
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| accessory after the fact | A person who, knowing that a felony has been committed, receives, relieves, comforts, or assists the felon to hinder apprehension or conviction.
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| accessory before the fact | A person who abets a crime but is not present when the crime was committed.
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| administrative law | A branch of public law that deals with the powers and duties of government agencies.
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| anomie | A condition of normative confusion or "normlessness," in which existing rules and values have little impact.
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| case law | Law that results from court interpretations of statutory law or from court decisions where rules have not been fully codified or have been found to be vague or in error.
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| civil law | The body of principles that determine private rights and liabilities.
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| common law | Customs, traditions, judicial decisions, and other materials that guide courts in decision making but have not been enacted by the legislatures into statues or embodied in the Constitution.
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| conspiracy | Concert in criminal purpose.
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| constitutional law | The legal rules and principles that define the nature and limits of governmental power and the duties and rights of individuals in relation to the state.
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| crime | An intentional act or omission in violation of criminal law, committed without defense or justification, and sanctioned by the state as a felony or misdemeanor.
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| criminal law | The branch of jurisprudence that deals with offenses committed against the safety and order of the state.
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| defense | Any number of causes and rights of action that serve to excuse or mitigate guilt in a criminal offense.
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| deviance | Conduct that the people of a group consider so dangerous, embarrassing, or irritating that they bring special sanctions to bear against the persons who exhibit it.
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| differential association | The theory of crime that suggests that criminal behavior is learned through the same processes that noncriminal behaviors are learned.
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| differential reinforcement theory | The theory that criminal behavior is not only learned but also reinforced by instrumental conditioning, i.e., the learned behaviors that result from the consequences, effects, and outcomes of an individual's social and cultural environment.
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| Durham Rule | Legal standard by which an accused is not held criminally responsible if he or she suffers from a diseased or defective mental condition at the time the unlawful act is committed.
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| entrapment | The inducement of an individual to commit a crime not contemplated by him or her.
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| felony | A crime punishable by death or imprisonment in a federal or state penitentiary.
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| general strain theory | Robert Agnew's theory through which crime is viewed as a direct result of strain, or the negative feelings that originate from life in disorganized and lower socioeconomic areas where legitimate opportunities to achieve success are restricted. It conceptualizes strain as relationships in which an individual is not treated the way he or she wishes to be treated, proposes three types of strain an individual might encounter, and includes the influence of negative emotions in creating criminal behavior.
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| labeling theory | The theory of crime that focuses on the processes of interaction through which behaviors become defined as criminal and the ways in which the labeling process can bring about more criminality.
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| Lambert v. California | Ruling whereby the U.S. Supreme Court held that due process requires that ignorance of a duty must be allowed as a defense when circumstances that inform a person as to the required duty are completely lacking.
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| larceny | The taking and carrying away of the personal property of another, with the intent to deprive permanently.
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| mens rea | A person's awareness of what is right and wrong under the law with an intention to violate the law.
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| misdemeanor | A crime punishable by no more than a $1,000 fine and/or 1 year of imprisonment, typically in a local institution.
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| misprision of felony | The concealment of a felony committed by another.
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| M'Naghten Rule | The "right-or-wrong" test of criminal responsibility.
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| natural law | General principles that determine what is right and wrong according to some higher power.
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| primary deviation | The term used in labeling theory to describe the violation of some norm or law.
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| Robinson v. California | The 1962 ruling whereby the U.S. Supreme Court declared that sickness may not be made a crime nor may sick people be punished for being sick. In a new approach to the Eighth Amendment's ban on "cruel and unusual punishments," the Court viewed narcotic addiction to be a "sickness" and held that a state cannot make it a punishable offense any more than it could put a person in jail "for the 'crime' of having a common cold."
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| secondary deviation | The term used in labeling theory to describe the demeanor and conduct that people cultivate as a result of being labeled deviant or criminal.
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| social control theory | A theory of crime that centers on how individuals are constrained by the social structure and holds that crimes are committed when an individual's attachments to society are weakened.
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| statutory law | Law created by statute, handed down by legislatures.
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| vicarious liability | The doctrine under which liability is imposed upon an employer for the acts of employees that are committed in the course and scope of their employment.
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