A
starting point for thinking about this is the legal phrase "nullum crimen sine lege"
(there is no crime without a law). In legal situations, this means that an act cannot be
considered a crime if no law was in existence making it a crime at the time it was committed.
So, for example, someone cannot be prosecuted for taking or selling a designer drug before the
drug was criminalized. More profoundly, though, it means that laws define what counts as a
crime. There is no absolute a priori measure of criminality, but rather,
each society passes laws that make certain acts criminal, and what counts as criminal varies
from society to society.
Next, crime does not occur in a vacuum but rather
grows out of social circumstances. Income inequality and the lack of a social safety net can
lead people to steal. Lack of opportunity to succeed in society and the feeling that there is no
legal path to the "American Dream" can cause young people to join gangs.
Neighborhoods saturated with gangs and...
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