Felony and misdemeanor - felony and misdemeanor

Japanese: 重罪･軽罪 - じゅうざいけいざい（英語表記）felony‐misdemeanor

A classification of crimes according to their severity. Historically, there were legal systems, such as English common law, that classified major natural crimes such as murder, rape, robbery, theft, and arson as felonies (which carried the death penalty) and other crimes as misdemeanors. Today, however, it is common to uniformly classify crimes according to whether they are punishable by imprisonment for a certain period of time (for example, one year in most parts of the United States and Germany, five years in France). (Note: In France, a trichotomy is used that adds a lowest category called "contravention" to the above two categories.)

Source: Heibonsha World Encyclopedia, 2nd Edition Information

Japanese:

犯罪をその罪質の軽重により区分した分類。歴史的には，イギリスのコモン･ローのように，殺人，強姦，強盗，窃盗，放火等の――死刑等の重刑にあたる――主要な自然犯を重罪とし，それ以外の罪を軽罪とする法制もあったが，今日では，一定の刑期(例えば，アメリカの多くの地域やドイツでは1年，フランスでは5年)以上の拘禁刑にあたるか否かを基準に，一律にこれを区分するのが通常である(なお，フランスでは，この両者に〈違警罪contravention〉という最下位の範疇を加えた三分法が用いられている)。

出典　株式会社平凡社世界大百科事典第２版について　情報

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