Any action by a person that affects the rights and property of another person is an aberration. When such an aberration is small and unintentional, it is known as ‘Error’. Slapping a person in anger is wrong. If the action is calculated and causes serious damage and loss to the other person, the mistake becomes a ‘Crime’. Deliberately slapping to insult a person is a crime. Any righteous person would repent of the mistake and prevent it from being repeated. However, a crime must attract punishment to make the person repent and deter him from committing any crime. The laws of society are primarily intended to maintain and defend the peaceful existence and rights of citizens. Criminal laws have the specific purpose of controlling and punishing crimes.

Following the Christian Bible, the first crime seems to have been committed by Adam when he disobeyed God’s instruction to stay away from Satan’s apple tree. The result was disastrous that man was cursed to suffer for repeating the same mistake of selfish love and procreation.

A bank manager was arrested after 22 years for his part in an act of corruption by sanctioning a huge loan to a fictitious export company. A retired government official received a double sentence of forfeiture of personal property and three years’ imprisonment for fraudulently issuing bogus building permits to build buildings on public land, such as lakes and rivers.

A politician amassed immense wealth by cleverly employing methods of corruption so that there was no evidence or witness left to trace the crime. To date, no convincing case could be made against him. The punishment imposed on him is the loss of power since his party was defeated in the subsequent elections. A former president of a country served a long prison sentence for his dictatorship causing immeasurable atrocities and unforgivable crimes.

One can commit crimes without leaving any evidence and go unpunished according to the laws of the land. However, that person’s conscience will gradually kill him. Alternatively, his family and the next generations are destined to suffer the effects of previous crimes. Otherwise, death puts an end to his crimes. All religions agree that God punishes him. Hinduism believes that the soul of the deceased takes another birth as a human or lower order creature to suffer the pending punishment depending on the magnitude of the crime committed in the last birth.

The truth is simple and easy to handle. No hassle to remember and remember. Only the truth ultimately wins.