Criminal Law is also called penal law and is related to crimes and how they can be effectively controlled, prevented and punished as well. Therefore, one of the main aspects of criminal law is to define the nature of a crime and what acts can be defined and accepted as a crime in the eyes of the law. There is criminal procedure which is one of the most important aspects of criminal law and is concerned with investigating, capturing and also trying the suspected criminals in a court of law to either prove them guilty or innocent in the eyes of the law.

There are certain aspects in a criminal case which has to be considered. One is the fact that the suspected has to be proved of being guilty of committing a particular crime beyond “all reasonable doubt”. Also the person has to have committed an act which is looked upon by society as an “actus reus” which means a guilty act. Also, the intention of the suspect has to be determined and seen as to whether the person had any malicious intent or “guilty mind” as well. The guilty mind is called the “mens rea” in legal terminology.

There is a certain distinction which is drawn between intention in a crime and that of negligence. Negligence is not punishable under law unless there is a certain punishment provided in a particular crime. There are many kinds of crime that one can look at and these include murder, fraud, assault and theft. In certain cases, a crime can be legally justified by citing the case of self defense. There is another way and that is by pleading insanity. Another example is called the defense of necessity. However, these cases are extremely complicated and have to be proven with rock solid evidence in favour of the accused.

In criminal law, any crime is just not the crime against a particular individual but against a whole community in whole. Usually the State starts the prosecution proceedings and especially cases which come under the purview of the common law.  Thus there are various kinds of punishments which are brought against a criminal who has been proven guilty. These punishments can be jailing, fines, state supervision (such as probation), or community service and so on. However, a lot of countries still have capital punishment and so often, criminals are often awarded the death sentences in cases of really heinous crimes committed. Often there are lay juries who help to decide whether the accused is guilty as accused or not.

There are many ways in which criminal law has been influenced and as a result developed and evolved over the years. One of the very important reasons is the effect of the social sciences and this has somehow changed the way in which sentence giving, research for data, law making and rehabilitation is still being conducted in the field of criminal law.