Crimes

• Author: Jeffrey Lehman, Shirelle Phelps

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Acts or omissions that are in violation of law.

Each state in the United States, as well as the federal government, maintains a body of criminal laws. As populations have increased and personal interactions and business transactions have grown more complicated, criminal laws have likewise grown in number and complexity. Most jurisdictions codify criminal statutes in a separate section in their laws. However, some crimes are placed in chapters or titles outside the designated criminal code. Generally, criminal laws are divided into several broad categories: offenses affecting public order, health, and morals; offenses involving trade, business, and professions; and offenses against the family. These categories often overlap. Juveniles and

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minors generally receive special treatment under criminal statutes.

Offenses Affecting Public Order, Health, and Morals

A number of acts are made criminal to preserve public order, health, and morals. Some of these laws are based in the COMMON LAW but have undergone significant changes over the years. Prostitution, if discreet and practiced indoors, was generally tolerated in colonial America, but streetwalkers were charged under lewdness, VAGRANCY, or similar laws. In the late nineteenth century, states began to identify and prohibit all prostitution, in criminal statutes, where it was defined as engaging in sex for hire. Prostitution is now illegal in all states except Nevada, where it is strictly regulated.

Pandering, or inducing another into prostitution, is illegal in all states, including Nevada. The solicitation of prostitution is illegal in all states except Nevada, where it is allowed only in licensed brothels.

Public OBSCENITY laws find their roots in the religious prohibitions of blasphemy and heresy, or defiance of the church. Laws prohibiting blasphemy and heresy were passed in colonial America, but after the passage of the FIRST AMENDMENT in 1791, states began to focus obscenity statutes on material with a sexual content. In 1996, the U.S. Congress passed the Telecommunications Act of 1996, Pub. L. 104-104, Feb. 8, 1996, 110 Stat. 56, which included criminal punishment for the transmission of obscenity through cyberspace.

The definition of obscenity is generally a matter of contemporary community standards. In New York, for example, any material or performance is obscene if "the average person, applying contemporary community standards," would find that the predominant effect of the work as a whole appeals "to the prurient interest in sex" (N.Y. Penal Law § 235.00 [McKinney 1995]). To be defined as obscene, the material or performance...