They are criminal offenses, when they cause damage to the victim, and these subject to pecuniary reparation, can give rise to criminal action and also punish the offender, and to civil action so that the victim, debtor of the obligation, is satisfied your claim for damages suffered.
The offense is also unlawful, fraudulent or guilty conduct, but it must be classified (appropriate to the criminal types) listed by criminal law to be subject to one of the criminal sanctions (fine, imprisonment, imprisonment and in some countries, the penalty of death).
Criminal behaviors can occur by action, as in murder or robbery, or by omission, as in the case of abandonment of person.
Crimes that affect the community as a whole, such as homicide, where everyone is interested in the apprehension of that person, who is a public danger, are public action, and the process can be initiated even without a request for a part ex officio by the judge. Private crimes, against property, for example, require that the action be promoted by an interested party. The ancient Romans had already distinguished between public crimes, what they called “crimina” and private crimes, which they called “delicta or hex”. They were criminals, for example, high treason or peril and parricide, who were sentenced to afflictive or corporal punishment, flogging, exile or death. Private crimes include poaching, robbery, wrongful damage, and injury.
In some legal systems, such as Roman Law, Chile, Argentina, Spain and the General Law, several systems of the family of continental law distinguish between criminal offenses and civil offenses, “it is the illegal act, executed with the intention of harming others, while the "wrongful civil tort" is the negligent act that causes damage.
Acts considered "civil damages" and "civil crimes" can also be "criminal offenses" if they are penalized and punished by law. A "criminal offense" is not, at the same time, a "civil offense", if it has not caused harm; nor a “civil offense”, at the same time, “criminal offense”, if the illicit conduct is not classified as a crime.
