👉The table of contents so far is here.
Chapter 6: The System of Offences Law
6.3. Classification of offences
In classical criminal law, crimes are often classified according to the legal interests that are violated, such as life, body, or property, but this can also be said to be a system that corresponds to the individual correspondence between crimes and punishments that is established in advance.
However, in communist offences law, which determines treatment according to the degree of need for correction, this formal classification method based on the legal interests that are violated is not adopted. Instead, a classification based on the social nature of the offences is adopted.
As such a classification, four types can be distinguished: economic offences, offences related to daily life, offences against the person, and political offences.
Economic offences are offenses that disrupt economic order, and typical examples include production and distribution activities that violate the economic plans that are the pillars of the communist economy, and the illegal occupation of lands that become bona vacantia (ownerless) in a communist society.
Since such economic offences are often committed by organized groups, punitive measures such as forced dissolution or suspension of operations may be imposed on the organizations themselves, in addition to individual perpetrators.
Offences related to daily life are the ones that violate the peace of civic lives, and include a wide range of offences, including property offences such as theft, as well as acts that violate privacy such as trespassing, wiretapping, and voyeurism. Numerically, this category comprises the largest number of offences.
However, many offences that fall into this category are only mildly antisocial, so overall the majority of cases will require only protective treatment such as probation.
Offences against the person are the ones that violate a person's life or body, and include assault, injury, murder, and sexual offences.
In terms of the pathology of the offender, these offences are the most serious and include difficult-to-treat cases in which a severe antisocial personality trait is recognized, so they will likely occupy a central position in correctional treatment.
Political offences are special offences that undermine the political stability of society, such as insurrection or violent sabotage. As the means by which they are committed are any of the three offences listed above, they usually constitute a complex offence.
Offenders in this category often harbor specific ideologies, beliefs, or faith, but they are not guaranteed the special status of so-called "prisoner of conscience," and are given correctional treatment as complex offenders.
👉The papers published on this blog are meant to expand upon my On Communism.
