The Young League Forum

3 Elements of fraud are: 1. Opportunity 2. Pressure 3. Rationalization

      This is a law that deals with crime and criminalities. Criminal law contains “lists of specific forms of human conduct which has been outlawed by political authority which applies uniformity to all persons living under the political authority and which is enforced by punishment administered by the state” (Sutherland and Cressey as quoted in Igbo,E.U.M 2007:16). According to Shively (2005), in such cases, the state [through her prosecutor] is the party that brings the case, and the person charged is the “defendant.”      Besides, crime means any act or action of an individual that violates the provisions of criminal law. From the above definition of crime, one can only call a person a criminal, if he/she has violated criminal law and has been found guilty by a court of law. 

     Crime is any criminal offence committed by a person or group either directly or indirectly, knowingly or unknowingly that is punishable under criminal law. Igbo, E.U.M. (2007:10), also defines crime as “any act or conduct of an individual or group which violates the criminal law.” He went further to say that “if the act or conduct does not violate the criminal law of society, then that act or conduct does not constitute a crime”. Similarly, Eneh-Onyeji (2011:39), rightly opined that “a crime (or an offence), is an act or omission punishable by the state”.      Moreover, one should note that before any act or conduct of individuals can be defined as a crime the following two conditions must be fulfilled or stand obvious: 1. The conduct or act must be prohibited by the Criminal law  2. The “mens rea “ (guilty mind or mental element) must correspond with “actu...