Examples of criminal law run from street-level offenses like assault and theft to white-collar conduct like embezzlement and tax evasion, and they’re organized by two things: what the defendant did and what was going on in their head when they did it. The same physical act can be a serious felony, a lesser offense, or no crime at all depending on intent. The categories below cover the offenses prosecutors bring most often, grouped by the kind of harm they target.
Why Mental State Shapes Every Charge
Almost every criminal charge requires the prosecution to prove not just that you did something, but that you had a particular mental state when you did it. Lawyers call this “mens rea,” and it’s often the most contested piece of a case. A person who accidentally backs into a pedestrian faces a fundamentally different situation than someone who deliberately drives into a crowd, even though both caused physical harm.
The Model Penal Code, which has shaped criminal statutes across the country, recognizes four levels of mental state, ranked from most to least blameworthy:
- Purposely: you acted with the conscious goal of causing a specific result. This is the highest level of intent and typically carries the harshest penalties.
- Knowingly: you were aware that your conduct was practically certain to cause a particular result, even if that result wasn’t your primary goal.
- Recklessly: you consciously ignored a serious and unjustifiable risk. You knew the danger existed and acted anyway.
- Negligently: you failed to recognize a risk that a reasonable person would have noticed. Unlike recklessness, negligence doesn’t require awareness.
The gap between recklessness and negligence matters in practice. A driver who texts while speeding through a school zone and kills a child acted recklessly. A driver who missed a faded stop sign in an unfamiliar area and caused a fatal collision may have acted negligently. Both are punishable, but recklessness carries significantly stiffer penalties. The same pattern repeats across the categories below: the required mental state shapes the charge and the sentence.
Crimes Against Persons
Offenses targeting individuals rank among the most heavily punished in criminal law because they threaten physical safety and personal freedom.
Assault and Battery
Assault means intentionally placing someone in fear of immediate physical harm. Battery involves actual unwanted physical contact or injury. Many states combine the two into a single offense. Penalties escalate sharply based on the circumstances. Under federal law, assaulting someone with a dangerous weapon can carry up to five years in prison, and an assault resulting in serious bodily injury can mean up to ten years. If the victim is a federal officer performing official duties, that ceiling rises to twenty years when the assault involves a caustic substance or maiming.1United States Sentencing Commission. Amendment 614
Homicide
Homicide is the most serious category of crime against a person, and the law draws careful lines between types based on the killer’s state of mind. Murder requires either an intent to kill or extreme recklessness showing a depraved indifference to human life.
Manslaughter covers killings that are serious but less blameworthy than murder. Under the Model Penal Code, a killing counts as manslaughter in two situations: when someone acts recklessly (consciously disregarding a serious risk of death), or when a killing that would otherwise be murder happens under the influence of extreme emotional disturbance with a reasonable explanation behind it.2Open Casebook. Model Penal Code Article 210 That second category roughly tracks what common law calls “heat of passion.” A spouse who discovers an affair and immediately kills in a blind rage is the textbook example. It doesn’t excuse the killing, but it reduces the charge from murder.
Below manslaughter sits negligent homicide, which the Model Penal Code classifies as a third-degree felony. This covers deaths caused by someone who should have recognized a life-threatening risk but didn’t. The key difference from manslaughter is that the person wasn’t consciously aware of the danger.2Open Casebook. Model Penal Code Article 210
Robbery and Kidnapping
Robbery sits at the intersection of property crime and violent crime. What separates robbery from ordinary theft is force or the threat of force. Snatching a wallet off a table is larceny. Taking it by threatening to hurt someone is robbery. That element of intimidation or violence is why robbery carries substantially harsher sentences than theft of the same dollar value.
Kidnapping involves unlawfully confining and moving a person against their will. It carries heavy penalties because it strips someone of their freedom and often places them in serious danger, particularly when the goal is to extract a ransom or coerce a third party.
Crimes Against Property
Property crimes target another person’s belongings, real estate, or structures. The law distinguishes sharply between crimes of acquisition (taking things) and crimes of destruction (damaging things).
Theft and Burglary
Larceny, commonly called theft, requires physically taking someone else’s property with the intent to keep it permanently. If you borrow a friend’s car without asking but plan to return it, that might not qualify as larceny, though it could still be a crime under other statutes.
Burglary is often misunderstood. It doesn’t require stealing anything. Burglary means unlawfully entering a structure with the intent to commit any crime inside. Someone who breaks into an office to destroy documents has committed burglary even though nothing was taken. This focus on the unauthorized entry, and the violation of a space where people expect to be safe, explains why burglary is punished more severely than many theft offenses.
Every state sets a dollar threshold that separates misdemeanor theft from felony theft. These thresholds vary dramatically, ranging from a few hundred dollars in some states to $2,500 or more in others. Crossing that line transforms a minor charge into one that can permanently alter your life.
Arson and Vandalism
Arson is the intentional burning of a building, vehicle, or other structure. Penalties are steep because fires endanger lives, not just property. Federal arson convictions can carry a minimum of five years and up to twenty years in prison, with longer sentences when someone is injured. State penalties vary widely. Some states break arson into multiple degrees, with the lowest treated as a misdemeanor and the highest carrying sentences comparable to violent felonies.
Vandalism, sometimes called criminal mischief, covers intentional damage or defacement of property. Punishments scale with the dollar amount of damage, with lower-value damage typically treated as a misdemeanor and higher-value destruction bumped to a felony.
Inchoate Crimes
The legal system doesn’t wait for a crime to succeed before stepping in. Inchoate crimes punish conduct that falls short of completing an offense but demonstrates enough intent and action to pose a genuine threat.
Criminal attempt means taking a concrete step toward committing a crime with the intent to follow through. Under the Model Penal Code, the act must be a “substantial step” that strongly confirms the person’s criminal purpose, not just thinking about it or talking about it, but doing something meaningful to make it happen.3Open Casebook. MPC on Attempt Liability Someone who buys a ski mask, draws a map of a bank’s layout, and stakes out the guard schedule has taken a substantial step toward robbery, even if they never walk through the door.
Conspiracy requires an agreement between two or more people to commit a crime, where at least one person takes action to further the plan.4Open Casebook. Model Penal Code Section 5.03 Solicitation covers asking or encouraging someone else to commit a crime, even if that person refuses. Prosecutors take these offenses seriously because the planning stage represents a genuine commitment to breaking the law, and because coordinated criminal activity tends to be more dangerous and harder to stop than a lone actor.
Statutory and Public Welfare Offenses
Some crimes exist purely because legislatures decided certain behavior threatens public health or safety, even when no specific victim is immediately harmed. Driving under the influence is the most common example. A first-offense DUI typically results in fines, license suspension, and mandatory participation in alcohol education or treatment programs. Penalties escalate quickly for repeat offenses, with some states imposing mandatory jail time starting with the second conviction.
Federal drug laws classify controlled substances into five schedules based on three factors: the substance’s potential for abuse, whether it has an accepted medical use, and the likelihood of physical or psychological dependence.5Office of the Law Revision Counsel. 21 USC 812 – Schedules of Controlled Substances Schedule I substances, which include heroin, are considered the most dangerous, with high abuse potential and no accepted medical use. Schedule V substances carry the lowest restrictions. A substance doesn’t even need to appear on the official lists to trigger prosecution. Anything structurally similar to a Schedule I or II drug and intended for human consumption can be treated as a “controlled substance analogue.”6Diversion Control Division. Controlled Substance Schedules
White-Collar and Financial Crimes
Financial crimes involve deception or breach of trust for monetary gain, and federal prosecutors pursue them aggressively.
Embezzlement occurs when someone entrusted with money or property, such as an employee, a financial advisor, or a government agent, diverts it for personal use. Under federal law, embezzling $5,000 or more from an organization that receives federal funding is punishable by up to ten years in prison.7Office of the Law Revision Counsel. 18 USC 666 – Theft or Bribery Concerning Programs Receiving Federal Funds
Tax evasion involves deliberately underreporting income or hiding assets to avoid paying taxes you legally owe. Federal tax evasion is a felony carrying up to five years in prison and fines up to $100,000 for individuals or $500,000 for corporations, on top of the unpaid taxes and prosecution costs.8Office of the Law Revision Counsel. 26 USC 7201 – Attempt to Evade or Defeat Tax The government typically builds these cases through years of financial audits before bringing charges, which is why conviction rates for tax evasion are remarkably high.
How Criminal Offenses Are Classified
The severity of a crime determines how it’s classified, which in turn controls the range of punishment a judge can impose. Federal law breaks offenses into three tiers.
Felonies are the most serious. Under the federal system, they’re divided into five classes based on the maximum prison sentence:
- Class A: life imprisonment or the death penalty
- Class B: twenty-five years or more
- Class C: ten to twenty-five years
- Class D: five to ten years
- Class E: more than one year but less than five years
Any offense carrying more than one year of imprisonment qualifies as a felony.9Office of the Law Revision Counsel. 18 USC 3559 – Sentencing Classification of Offenses
Misdemeanors carry a maximum of one year in jail and are divided into Classes A through C. Class A misdemeanors (up to one year) cover offenses like simple assault or minor theft. Class C misdemeanors (five days or less) handle the least serious conduct. Infractions sit at the bottom. These are minor violations like jaywalking that result in small fines with no jail time.9Office of the Law Revision Counsel. 18 USC 3559 – Sentencing Classification of Offenses
What a Felony Conviction Costs Beyond the Sentence
The sentence a judge hands down is only part of the picture. A felony conviction triggers a cascade of restrictions that follow you long after you’ve served your time. Federal law prohibits anyone convicted of a crime punishable by more than one year in prison from possessing firearms or ammunition.10Office of the Law Revision Counsel. 18 USC 922 – Unlawful Acts Many states restrict or eliminate voting rights for convicted felons, at least during incarceration, and some extend those restrictions through parole or permanently.
Beyond legal prohibitions, felony convictions create practical barriers. Employers routinely screen for criminal history, and many professional licenses, from nursing to financial advising, can be denied or revoked after a felony. Housing applications, loan applications, and even volunteer opportunities often ask about criminal records. These collateral consequences frequently last longer and hit harder than the original sentence, which is why defense attorneys focus so much energy on avoiding a felony conviction even when some punishment is inevitable.