Define and describe criminal responsibility. (245)
Criminal responsibility is a general concept of criminal law that identifies certain wrongdoing that
society considers to be punishable. Individual autonomy and community welfare are two main principles
that influence the decision on whether misconduct should be considered a crime. The former refers to
the promotion of minimal criminalisation with the goal of allowing people to live their lives as freely as
possible, while the latter explains that the need to protect the collective interests of the community.
Criminal law, which results from the interaction of the two principles, aims to prevent harms and is
applied to society to shield the interests and values. Specific policies and principles of criminal law have
an impact on the scope of criminal liability (Findlay, 2014). However, the policy of minimal
criminalisation supports that the criminal law should be used sparingly due to its coercive and liberty-
depriving consequences.
Criminal liability would be described as the point at which the committed offense results in a sentence,
assuming that such act was culpable and governed by penal law (Michał Peno, 2019).
There are
traditional elements of criminal responsibility - mens rea, acts reus, recklessness, negligence, and
intentionality - and that developed through the common law. All crimes involve some form of prohibited
conduct, which can be an act or an omission.
However, even if there are proofs covering both the
conduct and mental elements of a crime, criminal responsibility will not be proven if the principle of
contemporaneity is not applied.
