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psychlotron.org.uk
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Name of resource: Crime cards
Author(s): Aidan Sammons	
Specification: AQA-B
Details: A selection of possibly criminal acts that can be used to consider
the implications of different ways of defining crime.  I use them during a
lesson on the problems defining crime; students start by dividing them into
'crimes' and 'noncrimes' and move cards between the piles as different ideas
come into play.  Difficult case can form the basis for further discussion.

1.Someone takes home pens and paper from their office for personal use.	
2.Someone uses a phone at work to make personal calls.

Both potentially criminal but may not be considered as such by students
	
3.Someone drives at 63mph in an area where the speed limit is 60mph.	
4.Someone drives at 63mph in an area where the speed limit is 40mph.

Both criminal, but socially acceptable to many.  Also issue of degree/kind

5.Someone possesses 3g of cannabis resin for their own personal consumption.	
6.Someone possesses 3kg of cannabis resin for the purpose of selling it to others.	

Can be used to discuss victimless crime

7.A boy and a girl, both aged 15, have consensual sex.
8.A boy and a girl have consensual sex.  He is 15.  She is 12.  She has told him she is 15.

Illustrates the principle of strict liability.  In 8 the boy is guilty of rape
under English law, regardless of what he believed her age to be.

9.Two people have consensual sex.  Both are married to other people.	

Not a crime in the UK, but has been in the past; still illegal elsewhere.

10.A man wears a T-shirt in public which has words on it that Christians find offensive.

The blasphemy laws were only repealed in England in 2008.

11.Someone punches someone else, giving them a black eye.
12.Someone who is having an epileptic seizure punches someone else, giving them a black eye.	
13.Someone who has consumed a large amount of alcohol punches someone else, giving them a black eye.

Issues of mens rea/actus reus.  13 is still a crime even though person might not have
known what they were doing.

14.A factory owner’s factory pollutes a river, although the factory has not been run negligently.

Another example of strict liability.

15.A bank manager gives the access codes to the bank vault to someone else who pays them for the codes.	
16.A bank manager gives the access codes to the bank vault to someone who claims to be holding his child hostage.

Mens rea/actus reus issue.

17.Someone who is talking on their mobile phone whilst driving knocks down and kills a child.	
18.An eight year old child drives off in its parents’ car and knocks down and kills a child.	
19.An eight year old child takes some sweets from a shop without paying.	

Issues of criminal responsibility/doli incapax.

20.Someone breaks into someone else’s house and removes some valuable jewellery.
21.Someone finds some valuable jewellery lying in the gutter, picks it up and later sells it for cash.

Both theft, though 21 may raise questions.

22.A person kills their parent in order to inherit their money.	
23.A person kills their parent in the mistaken belief they were a burglar attempting to break into their house.	
24.A person kills their parent whilst under the delusion that their parent was an agent of a secret organisation who was spying on them.

Issues of criminal responsibility.