Criminal law legal definition

Criminal elements are set forth in criminal statutes, or cases in jurisdictions that allow for common-law crimes.
With exceptions, every crime has at least three elements:

Criminal law is the body of rules and statutes defining the offences against the community at large.
It regulates how suspects are investigated, charged and tried.
The law also provides the punishments for convicted offenders.
This is also termed as penal law.

The term “ criminal law ” refers to the actual laws, statutes, and rules that define acts and conduct as crimes, and establishes punishments for each type of crime.
Criminal acts are generally those seen by the government to threaten public welfare or safety, the severity of which categorizes various crimes as either misdemeanor or felony.