Originally published: 2013.

Penny Crofts examines how criminal legal doctrine and jurisprudence organises and expresses ideas about wickedness through the prism of malice. Whilst many legal theorists accept that the criminal legal system is a system of blaming, they do not consider that blaming involves censure or reproof for fault, wrong, badness or wickedness. Historically, the link between criminal law and morality was explicit, and expressed through evaluative terms in offence formulae such as malice and mens rea. Now, however, there is a tendency to think of crime in neutral procedural terms and to avoid reference to its normative elements.

Specialized.