Criminal Behavior and Law (Strict Liability)

Introduction

Offences of “Strict Liability” are those crimes which do not require Mens-Rea with regard to at least one or more elements of the Actus-Reus. The defendant need not have intended or known about that circumstance or consequence. Liability is said to be strict with regard to that element. The liability is said to be strict because defendants will be convicted even though they were authentically ignorant of one or more components that made their actions or omissions criminal. The defendants may thus not be culpable in any genuine way, i.e. there is not even criminal negligence, the smallest blameworthy grade of mens rea. (Carpenter, pp45-51)

Strict liability regulations were conceived in the 19th 100 years to advance employed and security measures in factories. Needing to verify mens reas on the part of the manufacturer proprietors was very tough and produced in very couple of prosecutions. The creation of strict liability infringements intended that convictions were increased. Common strict liability infringements today encompass the trading of alcoholic beverage to underage persons.

These regulations are directed either in regulatory infringements enforcing communal demeanour where negligible stigma attaches to a individual upon conviction, or where humanity is worried with the avoidance of damage, and desires to maximise the deterrent worth of the offence. The imposition of strict liability may function very wrongly in one-by-one cases. For demonstration, in Pharmaceutical Society of Great Britain v Storkwain (1986) 2 ALL ER 635, a pharmacist provided pharmaceuticals to a persevering who offered a forged doctor's prescription, but was convicted even though the House of Lords acknowledged that the pharmacist was blameless. The justification is that the misuse of pharmaceuticals is a serious communal bad and pharmacists should be boosted to take even awkward care to verify prescriptions before providing drugs. Similarly, where liability is imputed or attributed to another through vicarious liability or business liability, the effect of that imputation may be strict liability albeit that, in some situations, the suspect will have a mens rea imputed and so, in idea, will be as culpable as the genuine wrongdoer. (Glazebrook, pp121-127)

 

Discussion

Under the widespread regulation the direct is that misdeeds need verification of mens rea except in situations of public nuisance, criminal and blasphemous libel, and criminal contempt of court. Where the liability arises under a statute, there has been substantial inconsistency, with distinct directions of building in statutory understanding making varying evaluations of the will of Parliament. But, in Sweet v Parsley [1970] AC 132, Lord Reid prepared down the following guidelines for all situations where the infringement is criminal as are against to quasi-criminal:

Wherever a part is quiet as to mens rea there is a presumption that, in alignment to give effect to the will of Parliament, phrases trading mens rea should be read into the provision.

It is a universal standard that if a penal provision is sensibly adept of two interpretations, that understanding which is most favourable to the suspect should be adopted.

The detail that other parts of the Act expressly need ...