{'fraction_non_alphanumeric': 0.02680965147453083, 'fraction_numerical': 0.0, 'mean_word_length': 5.706586826347305, 'pattern_counts': {'":': 0, '<': 0, '<?xml version=': 0, '>': 0, 'https://': 0, 'lorem ipsum': 0, 'www.': 0, 'xml': 0}, 'pii_count': 0, 'substrings_counts': 0, 'word_list_counts': {'cursed_substrings.json': 0, 'profanity_word_list.json': 0, 'sexual_word_list.json': 0, 'zh_pornsignals.json': 0}}
Fundamentals of Criminal Law

This book explores the theoretical principles underlying the general part of the criminal law. It demonstrates how the major general part doctrines governing actus reus, mens rea, and defences are informed by deeper considerations of responsibility, culpability, and wrongdoing. The book shows how many of the criminal law’s doctrines can and should accommodate the demand that criminal convictions be imposed only upon persons who are culpable for their wrongdoing. But those same doctrines are not always driven by culpability. They are grounded also in certain further principles that the book identifies: specifically, principles of “moral responsibility”, “ascriptive responsibility”, and “wrongdoing”. Neither can many of those doctrines be separated from questions of criminalization. Doctrines governing such matters as causation, omissions, complicity, and even mens rea all serve more than one foundational principle, requiring mediation and compromise. As such, the book argues, they engage wider debates about wrongdoing, and about the boundaries between liability and freedom.