China and most western country have very different law principle and structure. Many find it hard to understand the difference. In this article by Shenzhen defense lawyer, we briefly introduce the reason of difference.
Legally speaking , crime is a behavior that shall be given criminal punishment as expressly stipulated by Criminal Law , such as stealing public or private property, robbering, selling forbinden drugs, or the intentional homicide within the meaning of Article 232 , stealing with any tool or weapon for criminal purposes , or purse-cutting as set forth in Article 264 of the Criminal Law of the PRC.
In the system of legality ,these are the only kind of crime in law ( or legal form, written in the law). In a substantial sense ,crime is a serious anti-social behavior. There are various ideas world wide in theories of criminal law on why law needs to define a behavior as crime. Some believe it is because crimes violates basic social ethics ( theory of violationof ethics) ; some say it is because crime hurts national , social or individual legal interests ( theory of hurting legal interests) ; others say it is because crime violates social ethics and infringes on specific legal interests ( dualistic theory ) . These are both the essence and the root of the legal meaning of crime. In juridic practice , conclusions vary with the adopted view on the essence of crime in Social life , there are always phenomena infringing on the rights and interests of others ethics , such as murder , assault , rape , robbery , theft , fraud , and Violating basic and forcible seizure Social life can go on without prohibiting such phenomena in strict punishment.