ABSTRACT
When a person is said to have committed a crime, that person is assumed to have a motive, to have acted intentionally, to be responsible for some criminal action. A tree cannot murder, though it may kill. A snake cannot be accused of assault, though the injuries it inflicts may be serious. Yet theories of crime have traditionally ignored questions about what would be necessary to make a person responsible for a criminal action. Indeed, classical theories in criminology attribute responsibility for crimes in such a way as to make criminals appear to be no more responsible than killer trees or injurious snakes.
