South African Criminal Law
South African criminal law is the body of national law relating to crime in South Africa. In the definition of Van der Walt ''et al.'', a crime is "conduct which Common law, common or statute law prohibits and expressly or impliedly subjects to punishment remissible by the state alone and which the offender cannot avoid by his own act once he has been convicted." Crime involves the infliction of harm against society. The function or object of criminal law is to provide a social mechanism with which to coerce members of society to abstain from conduct that is harmful to the interests of society. In South Africa, as in most Adversarial system, adversarial legal systems, the standard of evidence required to validate a criminal conviction is proof beyond a reasonable doubt. The sources of South African criminal law are to be found in the common law, in case law and in legislation. Criminal law (which is to be distinguished from its South African civil law, civil counterpart) forms ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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South Africa
South Africa, officially the Republic of South Africa (RSA), is the Southern Africa, southernmost country in Africa. Its Provinces of South Africa, nine provinces are bounded to the south by of coastline that stretches along the Atlantic Ocean, South Atlantic and Indian Ocean; to the north by the neighbouring countries of Namibia, Botswana, and Zimbabwe; to the east and northeast by Mozambique and Eswatini; and it encloses Lesotho. Covering an area of , the country has Demographics of South Africa, a population of over 64 million people. Pretoria is the administrative capital, while Cape Town, as the seat of Parliament of South Africa, Parliament, is the legislative capital, and Bloemfontein is regarded as the judicial capital. The largest, most populous city is Johannesburg, followed by Cape Town and Durban. Cradle of Humankind, Archaeological findings suggest that various hominid species existed in South Africa about 2.5 million years ago, and modern humans inhabited the ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Life Imprisonment
Life imprisonment is any sentence (law), sentence of imprisonment under which the convicted individual is to remain incarcerated for the rest of their natural life (or until pardoned or commuted to a fixed term). Crimes that result in life imprisonment are considered extremely serious and usually violent. Examples of these crimes are murder, torture, terrorism, child abuse Child manslaughter, resulting in death, rape, espionage, treason, illegal drug trade, human trafficking, severe fraud and financial crimes, Aggravation (law), aggravated property damage, arson, hate crime, kidnapping, burglary, robbery, theft, piracy, aircraft hijacking, and genocide. Common law murder is a crime for which life imprisonment is mandatory in several countries, including some states of the United States and Canada. Life imprisonment (as a maximum term) can also be imposed, in certain countries, for traffic offences causing death. Life imprisonment is not used in all countries; Portugal was the fi ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Capital Punishment
Capital punishment, also known as the death penalty and formerly called judicial homicide, is the state-sanctioned killing of a person as punishment for actual or supposed misconduct. The sentence (law), sentence ordering that an offender be punished in such a manner is called a death sentence, and the act of carrying out the sentence is an execution. A prisoner who has been sentenced to death and awaits execution is ''condemned'' and is commonly referred to as being "on death row". Etymologically, the term ''capital'' (, derived via the Latin ' from ', "head") refers to execution by Decapitation, beheading, but executions are carried out by List of methods of capital punishment, many methods, including hanging, Execution by shooting, shooting, lethal injection, stoning, Electric chair, electrocution, and Gas chamber, gassing. Crimes that are punishable by death are known as ''capital crimes'', ''capital offences'', or ''capital felonies'', and vary depending on the jurisdic ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Driver's License
A driver's license, driving licence, or driving permit is a legal authorization, or the official document confirming such an authorization, for a specific individual to operate one or more types of motorized vehicles—such as motorcycles, cars, trucks, or buses—on a public road. Such licenses are often plastic and the size of a credit card. In most international agreements, the wording "driving permit" is used, for instance in the Vienna Convention on Road Traffic. In American English, the terms "driver license" or "driver's license" are used. In Australian English, Canadian English and New Zealand English, the terms "driver licence" or "driver's licence" are used while in British English the term is "driving licence". In some countries the term "driving license" is used. The laws relating to the licensing of drivers vary between jurisdictions. In some jurisdictions, a permit is issued after the recipient has passed a driving test, while in others a person acquires thei ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Recidivism
Recidivism (; from 'recurring', derived from 'again' and 'to fall') is the act of a person repeating an undesirable behavior after they have experienced negative consequences of that behavior, or have been trained to Extinction (psychology), extinguish it. Recidivism is also used to refer to the percentage of former prisoners who are rearrested for a similar offense. The term is frequently used in conjunction with criminal behavior and substance abuse. ''Recidivism'' is a synonym of ''relapse'', which is more commonly used in medicine and in the disease model of addiction. Causes A 2011 study found that harsh prison conditions, including isolation, tended to increase recidivism, though none of these effects were statistically significant. Various researchers have noted that Loss of rights due to felony conviction, prisoners are stripped of civil rights and are reluctantly absorbed into communities – which further increases their alienation and isolation. Other c ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Relativism
Relativism is a family of philosophical views which deny claims to absolute objectivity within a particular domain and assert that valuations in that domain are relative to the perspective of an observer or the context in which they are assessed. There are many different forms of relativism, with a great deal of variation in scope and differing degrees of controversy among them. ''Moral relativism'' encompasses the differences in moral judgments among people and cultures. '' Epistemic relativism'' holds that there are no absolute principles regarding normative belief, justification, or rationality, and that there are only relative ones. '' Alethic relativism'' (also factual relativism) is the doctrine that there are no absolute truths, i.e., that truth is always relative to some particular frame of reference, such as a language or a culture (cultural relativism), while linguistic relativism asserts that a language's structures influence a speaker's perceptions. Some forms of ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Utilitarian
In ethical philosophy, utilitarianism is a family of normative ethical theories that prescribe actions that maximize happiness and well-being for the affected individuals. In other words, utilitarian ideas encourage actions that lead to the greatest good for the greatest number. Although different varieties of utilitarianism admit different characterizations, the basic idea that underpins them all is, in some sense, to maximize utility, which is often defined in terms of well-being or related concepts. For instance, Jeremy Bentham, the founder of utilitarianism, described ''utility'' as the capacity of actions or objects to produce benefits, such as pleasure, happiness, and good, or to prevent harm, such as pain and unhappiness, to those affected. Utilitarianism is a version of consequentialism, which states that the consequences of any action are the only standard of right and wrong. Unlike other forms of consequentialism, such as egoism and altruism, egalitarian utilita ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Free Will
Free will is generally understood as the capacity or ability of people to (a) choice, choose between different possible courses of Action (philosophy), action, (b) exercise control over their actions in a way that is necessary for moral responsibility, or (c) be the ultimate source or originator of their actions. There are different theories as to its nature, and these aspects are often emphasized differently depending on philosophical tradition, with debates focusing on whether and how such freedom can coexist with determinism, divine foreknowledge, and other constraints. Free will is closely linked to the concepts of moral responsibility, praise, culpability, and other judgements which apply only to actions that are freely chosen. It is also connected with the concepts of Advice (opinion), advice, persuasion, deliberation, and Prohibitionism, prohibition. Traditionally, only actions that are freely Will (philosophy), willed are seen as deserving credit or blame. Whether free ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Determinism
Determinism is the Metaphysics, metaphysical view that all events within the universe (or multiverse) can occur only in one possible way. Deterministic theories throughout the history of philosophy have developed from diverse and sometimes overlapping motives and considerations. Like Eternalism (philosophy of time), eternalism, determinism focuses on particular events rather than the future as a concept. Determinism is often contrasted with free will, although some philosophers claim that the two are compatibilism, compatible. A more extreme antonym of determinism is indeterminism, or the view that events are not deterministically caused but rather occur due to random chance. Historically, debates about determinism have involved many philosophical positions and given rise to multiple varieties or interpretations of determinism. One topic of debate concerns the scope of determined systems. Some philosophers have maintained that the entire universe is a single determinate system ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Restorative Justice
Restorative justice is a community-based approach to justice that aims to repair the harm done to victims, offenders and communities. In doing so, restorative justice practitioners work to ensure that offenders take responsibility for their actions, to understand the harm they have caused, to give them an opportunity to redeem themselves, and to discourage them from causing further harm. For victims, the goal is to give them an active role in the process, and to reduce feelings of anxiety and powerlessness. Restorative justice programmes are complementary to the criminal justice system including retributive justice. It has been argued from the perspectives of some positions on what punishment is that some cases of restorative justice constitute an alternative punishment to those atoning. Though academic assessment of restorative justice is positive, more recent studies have shown that academic performance falters in school districts where restorative justice is practiced. Pr ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Vengeance (concept)
Revenge is defined as committing a harmful action against a person or group in response to a grievance, be it real or perceived. Vengeful forms of justice, such as primitive justice or retributive justice, are often differentiated from more formal and refined forms of justice such as distributive justice or restorative justice. Function in society Social psychology, Social psychologist Ian Mckee states that the desire for the sustenance of power motivates vengeful behavior as a means of impression management: "People who are more vengeful tend to be those who are motivated by power, by authority and by the desire for status. They don't want to face (sociological concept), lose face". Vengeful behavior has been found across a majority of human societies throughout history. Some societies encourage vengeful behavior, which is then called a feud. These societies usually regard the honour, honor of individuals and groups as of central importance. Thus, while protecting their reput ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |