Criminal and Civil Law

     ¹Criminal law is the body of law that regulates individual conduct and is enforced by the government. ²Crimes are graded as felonies, misdemeanors, or offenses, according to their severity. ³Some acts—for example, murder, rape, and robbery—are considered crimes in all states. ⁴Although all states outlaw murder, their penal, or criminal, codes treat the crime quite differently, the penalty for murder differs considerably from state to state. ⁵Other crimes—such as sodomy and some forms of gambling, such as lotteries or bingo—are illegal only in some states.
     ⁶Criminal law assumes that society itself is the victim of the illegal act; therefore, the government prosecutes, or brings an action, on behalf of an injured party (acting as a plaintiff) in criminal but not civil cases. ⁷The murder charges against O. J. Simpson were styled as The State of California v. Orenthal James Simpson.
     ⁸Criminal cases are traditionally in the purview of the states. ⁹But, as illustrated in Politics Now: Blurring the Lines, a burgeoning set of criminal laws is contributing significantly to delays in the federal courts.
     ¹⁰Civil law is the body of law that regulates the conduct and relationships between private individuals or companies. ¹¹Because the actions at issue in civil law do not constitute a threat to society at large, people who believe they have been injured by another party must take action on their own to seek judicial relief. ¹²Civil cases, then, involve lawsuits filed to recover something of value, whether it is the right to vote, fair treatment, or monetary compensation for an item or service that cannot be recovered. ¹³Most cases seen on the The People's Court or Judge Judy are civil cases.

—O'Connor and Sabato, American Government, 2000, p. 341

		1-5. Complete the summary with information from the passage. Criminal and civil law differ in significant ways. law, which regulates individual conduct,
		assumes that is the victim of crimes;
		therefore, the prosecutes on behalf of the victim.
		law, which regulates the conduct and relationships between private individuals
		or , assumes that the wrongful action does not pose a threat to society.