Understanding Crimes Across and Between Events

Abstract: Criminal offences are typically structured, analysed and understood as ‘snap-shot’ events, taking place at a single point in time and space. A defendant (D) commits criminal damage when his conduct causes damage to another’s property, and at that moment (in action) D at least foresees the risk that he will damage another’s property. Core building blocks of the criminal law’s definitional general part – conduct, causation, voluntariness, mens rea – are theorised and defined in accordance with this single-event structure. However, large parts of the criminal law diverge from this paradigm, including inchoate offences; complicity; and so-called prior fault rules. I discuss the challenges that arise across these examples, and how a failure to recognise structural similarities has led to quite different (and often problematic) legal rules and outcomes.

Biography: John Child is a Professor of Criminal Law at the University of Birmingham; Co-Director of the University of Birmingham Centre for Crime, Justice and Policing; Co-Director of the Criminal Law Reform Now Network. John’s research interests centre on criminal law theory and doctrine, where he has published widely. John is a co-author of two leading criminal law textbooks: Smith, Hogan and Ormerod’s Essentials of Criminal Law and Simester and Sullivan’s Criminal Law.