What is crime?
I can explain the changing nature of crime and how societal structures, such as the law, keep up with these changes.
What is crime?
I can explain the changing nature of crime and how societal structures, such as the law, keep up with these changes.
These resources will be removed by end of Summer Term 2025.
Lesson details
Key learning points
- A crime occurs when an illegal act, punishable by law, is committed, regardless of whether it's seen as immoral or not.
- Crime rates fluctuate due to factors like legal changes, technological advances and shifts in societal structures.
- Society has systems in place that aim to reduce crime such as education, crime deterrents and adapting the law.
Keywords
Law - rules, usually made by parliament, that are used to order the way in which a society behaves
Illegal - not allowed/forbidden by law
Crime - an illegal act that is punishable by law
Social structure - the way different customs, relationships and institutions work together to make up society
Common misconception
An action is only considered a crime if it's seen as morally wrong.
In reality, a crime is defined by breaking the law, regardless of whether it seems unethical to the individual.
To help you plan your year 10 citizenship lesson on: What is crime?, download all teaching resources for free and adapt to suit your pupils' needs...
To help you plan your year 10 citizenship lesson on: What is crime?, download all teaching resources for free and adapt to suit your pupils' needs.
The starter quiz will activate and check your pupils' prior knowledge, with versions available both with and without answers in PDF format.
We use learning cycles to break down learning into key concepts or ideas linked to the learning outcome. Each learning cycle features explanations with checks for understanding and practice tasks with feedback. All of this is found in our slide decks, ready for you to download and edit. The practice tasks are also available as printable worksheets and some lessons have additional materials with extra material you might need for teaching the lesson.
The assessment exit quiz will test your pupils' understanding of the key learning points.
Our video is a tool for planning, showing how other teachers might teach the lesson, offering helpful tips, modelled explanations and inspiration for your own delivery in the classroom. Plus, you can set it as homework or revision for pupils and keep their learning on track by sharing an online pupil version of this lesson.
Explore more key stage 4 citizenship lessons from the What can we do to reduce crime? unit, dive into the full secondary citizenship curriculum, or learn more about lesson planning.
Equipment
Content guidance
- Depiction or discussion of sensitive content
Supervision
Adult supervision recommended
Licence
Lesson video
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Starter quiz
6 Questions
civil law
criminal law
civil law
civil law
criminal law
criminal law
Exit quiz
6 Questions
increase in food banks
advice on online banking apps
age restriction laws
equality laws
rules made by parliament that everyone must follow
forbidden by law
the way different customs, relationships, institutions work together