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"The Criminal", So to define what a criminal was during pre…

- - - - "What is a criminal?" is a complex question and it has no easy (or universally agreed upon) answer. It's a question that encapsulates several of criminalogy's main fields of interest. Speculating and theorizing to the answer to this question would help us understand crime and hone our theories about it.
        
        Theoretically, if we are able to answer to this question with absolute certainty, we'd be able to answer criminology's biggest questions, we could find the best method of deterrence, we could profile all likely criminal offenders with pinpoint accuracy, possibly give a definitive answer to why people commit crime. With the knowledge of the exact makeup of a criminal, perhaps we can eliminate crime entirely. Perhaps this is all a bit idealistic, but with the definitive answer it's possible to achieve all of this.
        
        So then, is there an answer? Is there an solution to crime itself?
        
        Possibly
        
        But the sad truth is that we will never get THE answer for anything in life, even if THE answer does exist. As the years go by, our current thoughts, ideas, assumptions, and beliefs will all become dated. We can look back to an earlier time and we could talk about how absurd and irrational people and there beliefs were back then, but their beliefs are a product of the times, a sound theory today could be a foolish one tomorrow. It happened to them, it'll happen to us, and it'll happen to the people after us.
        
        Regarding criminology, the exact answer to "what a criminal is" will never be figured out. What a criminal is to us today may not be what a criminal is to us 10 years from now. Our answers and response to crime will never be perfect, all we can do is improve on our current theories. Retool and refine them to make them better reflect our current and continuous effort into understanding what crime and a criminal is.
        
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        The knowledge of what a criminal is could help explain crime's very nature.
        
        We'd further our understanding of the guilty mind (Mens rea), the mental aspect of a criminal's intention to commit a crime. We'd better grasp their motives, specific intent to commit crime knowingly and willfully all leading up to the guilty act (Actus reus)
        
        We could better understand the psychology of a criminal, what factors were in play to develop their psychology, are there patterns in upbringing? Biology? Mental illness? To understand a criminal's psychology we can better predict who of us is more predisposed to criminal behaviour, improve criminal profiling, and assessments. In addition we could develop better methods of deterrence and better methods of psychological treatment
        
        The word "criminal" is one of explicit negative connotations. To answer what a criminal is can better our understanding of criminal justice and morality itself.
        
        To understand who we as a society define a criminal is to understand our own morality, our ethics, our belief of what is right and wrong. By examining the intentions, decisions and actions of a criminal we not only gain a better comprehension of their character, but we also gain a greater understanding of our own moral psychology by comparison. We'd better understand how we integrate our moral ideals into our character, how we make moral decisions and judgement, how we can promote rightness and dissuade criminal behaviour in the next generation.
        
        Laws, in theory, are the sum of society's collective morality, implemented, and enforced for the sake of common good (that being what is beneficial for all or most members of a given community). So to define the criminal is to gain a deeper understanding of our criminal justice system, our criminal codes, our methods of deterrence.
- - - - The Sumerians...
        
        ...and Sumer society is nicknamed the "cradle of civilization", they are the earliest known civilization in recorded histroy. They also have produced the earliest, legabile, written codes of law.
        
        The "Code of Ur-Nammu" is a list of 57 (32 still legible) laws implemented into Sumer society by King Ur-Nammu
        
        The contents of the code are quite remarkable for being one of the first of it's kind. Punishments for offenses are change depending on what offense took place.
        
        The idea of what a "criminal" was changed with the Code of Ur-Nammu, a crime was just a taboo outlined in their religion, they no longer needed to consult religious scriptures to find a (possible vague) interpretation of the solution to crime. The scriptures in any case may "provide input", but from here on out law was decided by the state, what is a crime is decided by the state, and who is a criminal is decided by the state.
        
        Future codes would be similar, however 300 centuries later...
        
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        This approach allowed them to add, fix, or remove laws based on what they thought was best for society. Scriptures and the beliefs they contain are pretty much set in stone, those beliefs will always define something or someone as a criminal because it's what the deity wanted.
        
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        For example: Murder and Robbery are crimes subject to cpatial punishment
        
        However some crimes are subject only to monetary compensation to the victim and/or state
        
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  - - - Today we prefer to place our beliefs in what criminal behaviour looks in science, define and regulate criminality through behavioural science and a sociological perspective based on whats good for society as a whole.
        
        It would be easy then to dismiss the religions these early people worshipped as an ancient, dated regulatory system of human behivour. Their beliefs on what criminal behaviour looks like are based entirely on interpretations and faith rather then fact. So it could be believed these religions have little influence on a modern criminological perspective. However I'd argue that these religons and early beliefs play a critical role on how we perceive criminal behaviour today.
- - - - Without that collective identity, forming bonds and relationships with individuals and groups become more difficult, entire social systems become severely weakened as well as social structures, leading up to a complete societal collapse (Though, with the absence of religion, it's unlikely that society would even form in the first place).
        
        Regarding Criminology, with no beliefs no collective identity, no society, there becomes no crime, no criminals. This is not because everyone is getting along, but because they'd be completely incapable to decide what's right and wrong. Morality as a concept is non-existent because a collective idea of what is morally right doesn't exists without the guidelines of a religion. They'd have no ethics to compare criminal behaviour with, nothing to base on what the difference is between someone whose just and someone who is a criminal
        
        The future of the human race and what that looks like in such a scenario is beyond comprehension. In a time without codes of law to dictate what a crime is, religion plays a critical role in defining thier morality, what they believe is a criminal in comparison, therefore what we may believe a criminal is today. Are these beliefs primitive? Yes, but with them they are able to grow as a society, without them, read the bubble below.
  - - - Judaism, Christianity, and Islam however all forbid it. To the followers of those religons, committing this act is wrong and goes against their collective beliefs about the act.
        
        But what if this wasn't so? What if the wrongness of sex with your immediate family was never outlined in these religions and passed down to the next generation?
        
        Sex with immediate family might have been practiced for generations after, if it's never outlined that's it's wrong or morally corrupt then what's from stopping them?
        
        Judaism, Christianity, and Islam didn't come up with the idea that incest is wrong on their own it was passed down from the beliefs of those who came before them. Our morality is a direct result of collective beliefs passed down from the generation before us. Over time, our feelings as a collective on certain behaviour might change, and they might not. Maybe today religion might not be the deciding factor on shifting morality and what is and isn't criminal behaviour, but what would modern people believe if the beliefs before them were never passed down? We could be living in a very different world with a very different idea of what is moral behivoiur.
        
        Side note: the word "crime" comes from the Latin word "cernō' which means "I decide, I give judgment". So theoretically, if no one decides on the wrongness of an act, it is even possible to pass the judgement that it is wrong?