Codification
Definition
The consolidation of criminal law into a single systematic statute, or code, drafted in advance, as opposed to letting offences accumulate through individual judicial decisions over time.
Related terms
- Criminalisation
- The formal process by which a legislature converts a previously lawful or merely deviant act into a criminal offence, typically by enacting...
- Harm Principle
- The idea, associated with John Stuart Mill, that the only legitimate ground for the state to restrict a person's conduct through law...
- Legal Moralism
- The position, associated with Patrick Devlin, that the state may criminalise conduct simply because a society's shared moral code condemns it, even...
- Moral Panic
- A period of intense, media-driven public anxiety about a group or behaviour perceived as an exceptional threat to social order. Coined by...
- Overcriminalisation
- A pattern in which legislatures create so many criminal offences, including minor regulatory ones, that the criminal law's reach outgrows its capacity...
- Model Penal Code
- A model statute drafted by the American Law Institute and published in 1962, never itself binding law, but widely adapted by United...
Explained in these topics
- The Legislature, Lawmaking, and the Decision to Criminalise
- Role of Legislature in Criminal Lawmaking (UGC-NET Unit II)Consolidating criminal law into a single systematic statute drafted in advance, as opposed to letting offences accumulate through individual judicial decisions...