Any action by one person affecting the rights and properties of another person is an aberration. When such aberration is small and unintentional, it's known as 'Mistake.' Slapping a person in anger is a mistake. If the action is a calculated one causing damages and serious losses to the other person, the mistake becomes a 'Crime.' Deliberate slapping to insult a person is a crime. Any upright person would regret for the mistake and avert its recurrence. However, a crime must attract punishment to make the person repent and deter him from committing any crime. The laws of the society are mainly intended for maintaining and upholding the peaceful existence and the rights of the citizens. Criminal laws are for the specific purpose of controlling and penalizing the crimes.
Going by the Bible of Christianity, the first crime seems to be made by Adam when he disobeyed God's instruction to keep away from the apple tree of Satan. The result was disastrous that man was cursed to suffer by repeating the same mistake of selfish love and the procreation.
A bank manager was arrested after 22 years for his involvement in a corruption for sanctioning a huge loan to a fictitious export firm. A retired government officer had a double punishment of seizure of personal assets and imprisonment for three years for his fraudulent issuing of fake building permits for constructing buildings on the public lands such as lakes and rivers.
A politician amassed huge wealth by employing corruption methods cleverly that no evidence or witness would be left to trace the crime. Till date, no convincing case could be filed against him. The punishment meted out to him is the loss of powers as his party was defeated in the subsequent elections. A former President of a country served a long term in the jail for his dictatorship causing immeasurable atrocities and unpardonable crimes.
One may commit crimes without leaving any evidence and go unpunished under the laws of the land. However, the conscience of that person will gradually kill him. Alternatively, his family and next generations are destined to suffer the effects of earlier crimes. Otherwise, the death brings the end to his crimes. All religions agree that God punishes him. Hinduism believes that the soul of the dead takes another birth as a human or a creature of the lower order to suffer the pending punishment depending on the magnitude of crime committed in the last birth.
Truth is simple and easy to handle. No botheration of remembering and recollecting. Truth alone wins ultimately.
