Legal Definitions - criminalization

Criminalization refers to the process by which an action or behavior that was previously legal or unregulated becomes prohibited by law, making it a criminal offense. This typically occurs when a legislative body, such as a parliament, congress, or city council, passes a new statute or ordinance.

• Example 1: Environmental Protection
  A state legislature passes a new law making it a criminal misdemeanor to dispose of hazardous waste in unapproved landfills. Prior to this law, disposing of such waste might have only resulted in civil fines or administrative penalties, but not criminal charges.
• Explanation: This new statute criminalizes the act of improper hazardous waste disposal, transforming it from a regulatory violation into a punishable crime.
• Example 2: Public Safety
  A city council enacts an ordinance that makes it a criminal offense, punishable by arrest and fines, to operate a motorized scooter on public sidewalks. Before this ordinance, riding scooters on sidewalks was simply a prohibited activity that might result in a warning or a non-criminal citation.
• Explanation: The city council's action criminalizes a specific mode of transportation in a particular area, attaching criminal penalties to an act that was previously not considered a crime.
• Example 3: Cybersecurity
  A federal government passes a new act that specifically makes it a felony to use artificial intelligence tools to generate and distribute "deepfake" videos with malicious intent. While general fraud or harassment laws might have applied in some cases, the creation and distribution of deepfakes for specific harmful purposes were not explicitly defined as a distinct criminal act before this legislation.
• Explanation: This legislation criminalizes a new category of digital behavior, establishing it as a specific criminal offense with its own set of penalties, rather than relying on broader, pre-existing laws.