What is crime - really?

When we think of crime, we tend to imagine bad people doing bad things.

Sherlock Holmes in London. Alexandra Strohbehn.

But what exactly is crime?

Criminologist Katherine S. Williams argued that:

“It is essential that one never forgets that no matter how immoral, reprehensible, damaging, or dangerous an act is, it is not a crime unless it is made such by the authorities of the state – the legislature, and at least through interpretation, the judges.”
(Williams, 1994, p. 11)

In other words, crime does not exist on its own. It exists because the state says it does.

At its core, crime is an act that is prohibited by law. If you walk into a shop and walk out with a television without paying, that is a crime. Quite simple.

However, if a global corporation pollutes a local river with toxic chemicals, causing long-term illness for thousands of people living nearby, it may not be labelled criminal if the company remained within specific regulatory loopholes. Both acts cause harm. So why is one considered a crime, while the other is simply “business”?

If you really pick it apart, there would be no crime at all if there were no laws prohibiting certain acts. Without law, crime does not exist. Michael and Adler took this argument one step further:

“If crime is merely an instance of conduct which is prohibited by the criminal code, it follows that criminal law is the formal cause of crime.”
(Michael and Adler, 1933)

Crime is a moving target

Crime is not fixed. It evolves over time. A clear example is American Prohibition. Between 1920 and 1933, the production and consumption of alcohol were criminalised. When Prohibition ended, the exact same behaviour became socially acceptable again.

The alcohol did not change. The act of drinking did not change. Only the political decision of the state changed. Acts that are considered criminal at one point in history can later become normal. Crime is not an inherent quality of an act.

Crime has no borders

If crime were defined by a universal moral standard, laws would look the same everywhere. Yet they do not. They are as diverse as the cultures and political systems that create them.

In much of Europe and the United States, alcohol consumption is a normal social activity. In countries such as Saudi Arabia and Yemen, it is a criminal offence, sometimes punished harshly (World Population Review, 2026).

In some nations, gambling is a state-sponsored pastime. In others, it is strictly prohibited.

Killing also illustrates this contradiction. Killing a lover in a bitter love triangle is classified as murder, yet killing an enemy in a battlefield context may result in medals and hero status. The act itself is the same; the legal interpretation is not.

Even today, the legality of things such as cannabis, the death penalty, and freedom of speech varies wildly across nations.

If “bad” were a constant, the law would reflect a single human conscience. Instead, crime is more like language. A tree exists everywhere, but different languages use different words to describe it. Similarly, harm exists everywhere, but crime is the specific label a government chooses to apply to that harm. Just as words change meaning over time, acts become crimes only when a particular culture decides to include them in its legal vocabulary.

Legality vs morality

We often think of criminals as inherently bad people. But as this post has shown, a criminal is simply someone who has violated a specific rule, in a specific place, at a specific time.

While some actions undeniably cause severe harm, legality should not be confused with morality.

Crime is not a fixed reality. It is a social construct. It changes with time, place, politics, and culture. It is a tool used by the state to maintain a particular kind of order. Understanding this does not excuse harmful behaviour, but it does force us to ask harder questions about who gets criminalised, and whose harm is ignored.

References

Michael, J. And Adler, M. (1933) Crime, Law and Social Science, New York, Harcourt, Brace Jovanovich.

Williams, K. S. (1994) Textbook on Criminology, 2nd edn, London, Blackstone.

​World Population Review (2026) Countries Where Alcohol Is Illegal 2026.