Crime is the class essence of opposing the ruling relationship. Crime in China's criminal law refers to an act that has serious social harm and violates criminal legal norms and should be punished according to law. Crime has three basic characteristics: (1) Crime has serious social harm, which is the essential feature of crime. The degree of social harm is also the boundary between crime and general illegal behavior. (2) Crime is an act that violates the norms of criminal law, that is, it has criminal illegality. Criminal illegality is the legal manifestation of serious social harm of criminal behavior. (3) Crime is an act that should be punished by penalty, that is, it should be punished by penalty. Penalty is the most severe legal sanction.
The concept of crime explains the essence and legal characteristics of crime, and it answers the question of "what is a crime". The constitution of a crime explains the necessary elements of a crime and answers the question "What conditions can make a crime". The constitution of crime is based on the concept of crime. Without the concept of crime, the constitution of crime will lose its foundation. The concept of crime is clarified by the constitution of crime. Without the constitution of crime, it is difficult to determine the boundary between crime and non-crime. It can be seen that the constitution of crime is the concretization of the concept of crime. The constitution of crime occupies a core position in the criminal theory system of criminal law.
1. Criminal object
The object of crime is a social relationship that is protected by China's criminal law and violated by criminal acts. The object of crime is the primary factor to determine the degree of social harm of crime. According to the different levels of social relations contained in criminal objects, criminal objects can be divided into general objects, similar objects and direct objects. The general object of crime refers to the object infringed by all criminal acts, that is, the whole social relationship protected by our criminal law. The object of the same kind of crime refers to the object infringed by a certain crime, that is, a part or an aspect of social relations protected by criminal law. China's criminal law system is based on the same criminal object. Specific provisions of criminal law 10 chapter. The charges and similar criminal objects in each chapter are: the crime of endangering national security, and the related object is national security; Crime of endangering public safety, the same object is public safety; The crime of destroying the socialist market economic order, the same kind of object is the socialist market economic order; For the crime of infringing citizens' personal rights and democratic rights, the similar objects are citizens' personal rights and democratic rights; In the crime of infringing on property, the similar objects are socialist public property rights and citizens' private property rights; Crime of disturbing social management order, the same object is social management order; Crime of endangering national defense interests, the same object is national defense interests; In the crime of corruption and bribery, the similar object is the integrity of duty behavior; In the crime of dereliction of duty, the same kind of object is the normal activity of state organs; In the crime of military personnel violating their duties, the similar object is the military interests of the country. The direct object of crime refers to the object directly violated by a specific crime, that is, the specific social relationship directly violated by a specific crime. For example, the crime of homicide violates the personal rights of citizens, the crime of destroying military marriage violates the marriage relationship of active servicemen, and so on.
2. The objective aspect of crime
The objective aspect of crime refers to the objective conditions that constitute a crime stipulated in the criminal law. The objective aspects of crime mainly include harmful behavior, harmful result, causal relationship between harmful behavior and harmful result, time, place and method of crime, etc. Harmful behavior occupies a core position in the objective aspect of crime. Harmful behavior refers to the objective behavior that constitutes a crime, that is, the behavior that is dominated by the consciousness and will of the actor, violates the provisions of the criminal law and harms society. Harmful behavior in the sense of criminal law has its own characteristics: (l) the specificity of the subject. That is, the harmful behavior is the behavior carried out by natural persons or legal persons. (2) Have a body. That is, harmful behavior is human physical activity. (3) intentionality. That is, the harmful behavior is dominated by human consciousness and will. () harmfulness. That is, harmful behavior is harmful to society. (5) violation of criminal law norms. That is, harmful behavior is a violation of criminal law norms and is prohibited by criminal law. Therefore, reflexive actions of human body, actions in sleep, behaviors of mental patients, acts caused by irresistible reasons and other harmful behaviors that lack human will, lack of proper defense, emergency avoidance, performance of duties, etc., are not criminal violations, and do not belong to criminal law. Traditional criminal law theory divides harmful behavior into two types: action and omission. Behavior refers to the behavior prohibited by the criminal law norms made by the actor's positive body movements, that is, "doing something wrong". In criminal law, most crimes are constituted by acts, such as robbery, rape, theft, escape, forgery and so on. Inaction refers to the behavior that the actor has a specific obligation to carry out some positive behavior, and can perform this obligation without performing it, that is, the behavior of "doing something without doing anything". The crime of omission is also very common in China's criminal law, such as abandonment, abandonment of wounded soldiers, dereliction of duty and so on. In addition, there is a criminal law theory that the basic form of harmful behavior, in addition to acts and omissions, there is also a form of "holding". The so-called possession refers to the actual control state of goods. China's criminal law stipulates a variety of possession crimes, such as the crime of illegal possession of guns and ammunition, the crime of holding counterfeit money, the crime of illegal possession of drugs, and the crime of huge amounts of property with unknown sources.
Harmful result refers to the legal actual damage or realistic dangerous state caused by harmful behavior acting on the criminal object. In China's criminal law, there are different provisions on criminal results, mainly as follows: (1) criminal results are clearly defined in the concepts of intentional crime and negligent crime; (2) Taking the occurrence of some tangible material result as the accomplished standard of some intentional crimes; (3) Taking the occurrence of realistic dangerous results as the standard of some intentional crimes; (4) Taking the result of causing some serious harm as the standard to constitute a negligent crime; (5) Some harmful results will occur; As a standard to distinguish this crime from that crime; (6) Taking causing certain serious consequences as the basis for aggravating statutory punishment or heavier punishment; (7) Some provisions in the criminal law do not explicitly stipulate the harmful results, but only stipulate the manifestations of harmful behaviors.
The causality between harmful behavior and harmful result, also known as causality in criminal law, refers to the relationship between harmful behavior and harmful result in objective aspects of crime. According to the principle of self-blame, the actor can only bear criminal responsibility for the harmful results caused by his own harmful behavior.
The time, place and method of a crime are also objective elements of a crime, but they are all optional elements. That is to say, for most crimes, the criminal law does not regard time, place and method as necessary elements of a crime, but only regards them as necessary elements of a part of a crime. For example, one of the necessary conditions for the crime of illegal hunting stipulated in the second paragraph of Article 341 of the Criminal Law to constitute a crime is to kill pigs during the hunting ban, and it must also constitute illegal hunting during the hunting ban. For another example, some crimes must be constituted in a specific way, and the crime of violent interference with freedom of marriage stipulated in Article 257 of the Criminal Law must be constituted by violence.
subject of crime
The subject of crime in China's criminal law refers to the natural persons and units that commit acts that endanger society and should bear criminal responsibility according to law. The natural person subject is the most basic and common criminal subject in China's criminal law. The theme of this unit has no universal significance. According to the provisions of the criminal law, the unit becomes the subject of crime, only if it is expressly stipulated in the specific provisions of the criminal law. The subject of natural person crime refers to a natural person who has the ability of criminal responsibility and has committed acts that endanger society and should bear criminal responsibility according to law. The ability of criminal responsibility in China's criminal law refers to the ability of the actor to identify and control his own behavior in the sense of criminal law, which is necessary for the actor to constitute a crime and bear criminal responsibility. The ability of criminal responsibility includes the ability of identification and control. Discriminatory ability refers to the actor's ability to distinguish the meaning, nature and consequences of his behavior in criminal law. Control ability refers to the actor's ability to decide whether his behavior violates the criminal law. There are two factors that affect people's ability to recognize and control, thus affecting people's criminal responsibility: one is the maturity of knowledge and intelligence, and the other is whether the spirit is normal.
According to factors such as people's age and mental state that affect the existence and size of criminal responsibility, China's criminal law divides criminal responsibility into four situations: (1) complete criminal responsibility. Anyone who has reached the age of 18, has sound mental and physiological functions and normal intellectual and knowledge development is an actor with full criminal responsibility. If a fully responsible person commits a crime, he shall bear all criminal responsibilities according to law. (2) No criminal responsibility at all. The complete lack of criminal responsibility means that the actor has no ability to identify or control his own behavior in the sense of criminal law. In China's criminal law, it refers to people under the age of 14 and people who cannot recognize or control their behavior because of mental illness. These people are not criminally responsible for committing criminal acts. (3) The criminal responsibility is relatively lacking. The perpetrator is only criminally responsible for certain serious crimes clearly stipulated in the criminal law. Paragraph 2 of Article 17 of China's Criminal Law stipulates that a person who has reached the age of 14 but under the age of 16 shall bear criminal responsibility for intentional homicide or intentional injury that causes serious injury, death, rape, robbery, drug trafficking, arson, explosion or poisoning. (4) the ability to reduce criminal responsibility. Criminal responsibility should be borne when committing a criminal act, but the criminal responsibility is reduced because of its weakened responsibility ability, and the punishment should or can be lightened or exempted. In China's criminal law, minors who are over 14 and under 18, deaf and dumb people, drug addicts, blind people, and mental patients who have not completely lost their ability to recognize or control their own behavior are people with reduced criminal responsibility.
The natural person subject of some crimes requires not only the ability of criminal responsibility, but also a special identity, which refers to the provisions of the criminal law on the existence and size of criminal responsibility, the specific qualifications and status of the actor. According to whether the subject requires a specific identity, the subject of natural person crime is divided into general subject and special subject. Criminal law does not require special status as a subject, but as a general subject. Punishment regulations take special status as the main body of the elements, which is a special subject. For example, the subject of corruption crime must be state functionaries, and the subject of treason crime must be state functionaries.
Unit crime refers to the behavior that harms the society and is committed by companies, enterprises, institutions, organs and groups and should bear criminal responsibility according to law. Only when the criminal law clearly stipulates that the unit can become the subject of crime will there be problems of unit crime and unit criminal responsibility. For unit crimes, the principle of double punishment is generally adopted. Lang fined the unit, and at the same time punished the directly responsible person in charge and other directly responsible personnel.
4. Subjective aspects of crime
The subjective aspect of crime refers to the psychological attitude of the subject of crime towards his behavior and endangering social results. Subjective aspects of crime include guilt (intentional or negligent crime), criminal purpose, criminal motivation and other factors. Crime is a subjective obligation that all elements of crime must have. The purpose of a crime is only a necessary subjective element of some crimes, which is also called selective subjective element. Criminal motive is not a necessary subjective element of crime, and generally does not affect conviction, but only sentencing.
Deliberate crime refers to a subjective psychological attitude that the actor knows that his behavior will lead to the result of endangering society, and hopes or lets this result happen. Criminal intent includes two levels: cognitive factors and will factors. According to the different psychological attitudes of the perpetrators to the harmful results when committing criminal acts, criminal intent can be divided into direct intent and indirect intent in theory. The direct intention of crime refers to the psychological attitude of the perpetrator who knows that his behavior will inevitably or possibly lead to harmful consequences to society and hopes that such harmful consequences will occur. The indirect intention of crime refers to the psychological attitude of the perpetrator who knows that his behavior may produce harmful results to society and let such results happen. The main difference between direct intention and indirect intention lies in the difference of will factors. Direct intention is to hope that harmful results will happen, and indirect intention is to let harmful results happen. In China's criminal law, most intentional crimes can only be constituted by direct intention, and a few crimes such as homicide can be constituted by direct intention or indirect intention.
Negligent crime refers to a kind of psychological attitude that the actor should have foreseen the possible harmful consequences of his behavior, but failed to foresee it due to negligence, or had foreseen it and thought it could be avoided. The difference between criminal negligence and criminal intent is that, from the perspective of cognitive factors, criminal intent shows that the actor knows that the harmful result is inevitable or possible, while criminal negligence shows that although the actor should have foreseen the harmful result, he actually did not foresee it, or only foresaw an unrealistic possibility. From the perspective of will, the content of criminal intent is the psychological attitude of hoping or letting harmful results happen, while criminal negligence is neither hoping nor letting harmful results happen, but the psychological attitude of rejection and opposition, which leads to the occurrence of results only because of negligence or too credulity. Criminal negligence can be divided into two types: overconfident negligence and negligent negligence. The mistake of overconfidence is the psychological attitude of the actor who foresees that his behavior may endanger society, but credulity can be avoided, which leads to this result. Negligence is the psychological attitude that the actor should have foreseen that his behavior may cause harm to society, but he did not foresee it because of negligence, which led to such a result.
According to Article 16 of the Criminal Law, although an act objectively caused damage, it was not caused by the intention or negligence of the actor, but by irresistible or unforeseeable reasons. It was an accident and was not considered a crime.