SOC 1500 Lecture Notes - Lecture 1: Actus Reus, Mens Rea, Vigilante

• School: University of Guelph
• Department: Sociology
• Course: SOC 1500
• Professor: Stephanie Howells

Document Summary

It has real effects in people"s health, safety and sense of well-being and affect how make decisions; crime and aftermath can damage central institutions of society (family, workplace, schools); understanding crime can/does inform policy. Every society has rules about behaviour formalized rules = laws, which are tools for promoting good behavior (only if people know they will be enforced such as speeding) 9/11 changed policies such as airline flight regulations and how one perceives individuals, and school shootings changed the policies regarding lockdowns in ontario criminal activity in one place can have large repercussions. Rules such as coughing or sneezing into elbows behavioural norms that have no repercussions on the federal level. In some ways laws promote good behaviour because one is afraid of consequences. We have to have crime in order to have laws. Actus reus and mens rea - we must understand intent, as hard and almost impossible as that is.