The Law as a Weapon of the State

"At its inception, criminal law was directed at conduct that society recognized as inherently wrongful and, in some sense, immoral. These acts were wrongs in and of themselves (malum in se), such as murder, rape, and robbery. In recent times the reach of the criminal law has been expanded so that it now addresses conduct that is wrongful not because of its intrinsic nature but because it is a prohibited wrong (malum prohibitum)'that is, a wrong created by a legislative body to serve some perceived public good. These essentially regulatory crimes have come to be known as ?public welfare? offenses." And so most people never ask themselves if something is "right," only if it's "legal." (See below)