Which Do You Think Poses a Serious Threat to Society: An Attempt or a Solicitation to Commit Murder, Essay Example

Solicitation to a crime and attempt to commit a crime are two relatively different concepts in criminal law. An attempt to commit a crime can be explain as when someone attempts something when they try to accomplish it.(Feinman, 2000) Thus, its mental element is actually the intent to commit a certain crime. The predominant number of crimes involve a chain of events that begins with formulating the intention to commit the crime through getting ready for it to committing that exact action, thus, it is like ‘almost committing a crime’. On the other hand, solicitation implies trying to get someone else to commit a crime.(Feinman, 2000) However, asking someone to commit a crime is not directly harming anybody or committing offense. Therefore, attempt and solicitation are somehow similar, because both concepts imply thinking about a crime and engaging in certain activities, but not culminating it in defined offence. Both of the concepts refer to inchoate crimes. Legislatures have issued certain laws to define inchoate crimes and prevent them at a certain stage to avoid the crime being committed. I don’t think one of them can be defined as being more serious threat to the society than another. Both of these activities lead to a criminal act, thus I don’t think it matters which way you go as it leads to the same outcome.

References

Feinman, J. M. (2000). Law 101: Everything you need to know about the American legal system. Oxford University Press.