Criminal lawCriminal law is the body of law that relates to crime. It prescribes conduct perceived as threatening, harmful, or otherwise endangering to the property, health, safety, and welfare of people inclusive of one's self. Most criminal law is established by statute, which is to say that the laws are enacted by a legislature. Criminal law includes the punishment and rehabilitation of people who violate such laws. Criminal law varies according to jurisdiction, and differs from civil law, where emphasis is more on dispute resolution and victim compensation, rather than on punishment or rehabilitation.
Transformative justiceTransformative justice is a series of practices and philosophies designed to create change in social systems. Mostly, they are alternatives to criminal justice in cases of interpersonal violence, or are used for dealing with socioeconomic issues in societies transitioning away from conflict or repression. Other fields of practice have adopted transformative justice, including to address groups' work on other social issues and climate justice.
Criminal justiceCriminal justice is the delivery of justice to those who have been accused of committing crimes. The criminal justice system is a series of government agencies and institutions. Goals include the rehabilitation of offenders, preventing other crimes, and moral support for victims. The primary institutions of the criminal justice system are the police, prosecution and defense lawyers, the courts and the prisons system.
Alternative dispute resolutionAlternative dispute resolution (ADR), or external dispute resolution (EDR), typically denotes a wide range of dispute resolution processes and techniques that parties can use to settle disputes with the help of a third party. They are used for disagreeing parties who cannot come to an agreement short of litigation. However, ADR is also increasingly being adopted as a tool to help settle disputes within the court system.
Retributive justiceRetributive justice is a legal punishment that requires the offender to receive a punishment for a crime proportional and similar to its offense. As opposed to revenge, retribution—and thus retributive justice—is not personal, is directed only at wrongdoing, has inherent limits, involves no pleasure at the suffering of others (i.e., schadenfreude, sadism), and employs procedural standards. Retributive justice contrasts with other purposes of punishment such as deterrence (prevention of future crimes), exile (prevention of opportunity) and rehabilitation of the offender.
PrisonA prison, also known as a jail, gaol (dated, British and South African; historically used in Canada and Australia), penitentiary (North American English), detention center (or detention centre outside the US), correction center, correctional facility, lock-up, hoosegow or remand center, is a facility in which convicted criminals are confined involuntarily (against their will) and denied a variety of freedoms under the authority of the state as punishment for various crimes.
Sentence (law)In law, a sentence is the punishment for a crime ordered by a trial court after conviction in a criminal procedure, normally at the conclusion of a trial. A sentence may consist of imprisonment, a fine, or other sanctions. Sentences for multiple crimes may be a concurrent sentence, where sentences of imprisonment are all served together at the same time, or a consecutive sentence, in which the period of imprisonment is the sum of all sentences served one after the other.
Domestic violenceDomestic violence is violence or other abuse that occurs in a domestic setting, such as in a marriage or cohabitation. Domestic violence is often used as a synonym for intimate partner violence, which is committed by one of the people in an intimate relationship against the other person, and can take place in relationships or between former spouses or partners. In its broadest sense, domestic violence also involves violence against children, parents, or the elderly.
Rehabilitation (penology)Rehabilitation is the process of re-educating and preparing those who have committed a crime, to re-enter society. The goal is to address all of the underlying root causes of crime in order to ensure inmates will be able to live a crime-free lifestyle once they are released from prison. It generally involves psychological approaches which target the cognitive distortions associated with specific kinds of crime committed by individual offenders, but it may also entail more general education like reading skills and career training.
Juvenile delinquencyJuvenile delinquency, also known as juvenile offending, is the act of participating in unlawful behavior as a minor or individual younger than the statutory age of majority. The term delinquent usually refers to juvenile delinquency, and is also generalised to refer to a young person who behaves an unacceptable way. In the United States, a juvenile delinquent is a person who commits a crime and is under a specific age. Most states specify a juvenile delinquent, or young offender, as an individual under 18 years of age while a few states have set the maximum age slightly different.