Criminal Offense

A Criminal Offense is a violation of a public law. The nature of a criminal offense can be described by the jurisdiction of the lawmaking body (international, national, regional or local), and the severity associated with the violation (misdemeanor or felony).^[1]

Offenses are generally considered to be criminal in nature if they involve harm being inflicted on others. This distinguishes criminal offenses from violations like traffic or parking tickets, where important rules of law are broken but there is not direct victim involved.

1. ↑ http://legal-dictionary.thefreedictionary.com/Criminal+offense