A regulatory offence or quasi-criminal offence is a class of crime in which the standard for proving culpability

Culpability

Culpability descends from the Latin concept of fault . The concept of culpability is intimately tied up with notions of agency, freedom and free will...

 has been lowered so a mens rea

Mens rea

Mens rea is Latin for "guilty mind". In criminal law, it is viewed as one of the necessary elements of a crime. The standard common law test of criminal liability is usually expressed in the Latin phrase, actus non facit reum nisi mens sit rea, which means "the act does not make a person guilty...

(Latin

Latin

Latin is an Italic language originally spoken in Latium and Ancient Rome. It, along with most European languages, is a descendant of the ancient Proto-Indo-European language. Although it is considered a dead language, a number of scholars and members of the Christian clergy speak it fluently, and...

 for "guilty mind") element is not required. Such offences are used to deter potential offenders from dangerous behaviour rather than to impose punishment

Punishment

Punishment is the authoritative imposition of something negative or unpleasant on a person or animal in response to behavior deemed wrong by an individual or group....

 for moral wrong-doing.

Absolute liability offences

An absolute liability offence is a type of criminal

Criminal law

Criminal law, is the body of law that relates to crime. It might be defined as the body of rules that defines conduct that is not allowed because it is held to threaten, harm or endanger the safety and welfare of people, and that sets out the punishment to be imposed on people who do not obey...

 offence that does not require any fault elements

Mens rea

Mens rea is Latin for "guilty mind". In criminal law, it is viewed as one of the necessary elements of a crime. The standard common law test of criminal liability is usually expressed in the Latin phrase, actus non facit reum nisi mens sit rea, which means "the act does not make a person guilty...

 to be proved in order to establish guilt. The prosecution only needs to show that the accused performed the prohibited act

Actus reus

Actus reus, sometimes called the external element or the objective element of a crime, is the Latin term for the "guilty act" which, when proved beyond a reasonable doubt in combination with the mens rea, "guilty mind", produces criminal liability in the common law-based criminal law jurisdictions...

. As such, absolute liability offences do not allow for a defence of mistake of fact.

Due to the ease which the offence can be proven only select offences are of this type. Absolute liability offences must be clearly labeled as such in the Criminal Code

Criminal Code

A criminal code is a document which compiles all, or a significant amount of, a particular jurisdiction's criminal law...

 or criminal legislation

Legislation

Legislation is law which has been promulgated by a legislature or other governing body, or the process of making it...

.

Public welfare offences

A crime for which "a reasonable person should know [that the proscribed activity] is subject to stringent public regulation and may seriously threaten the community's health or safety."

See also

• Infraction
• Malum prohibitum
  Malum prohibitum
  Malum prohibitum is a Latin phrase used in law to refer to conduct that constitutes an unlawful act only by virtue of statute, as opposed to conduct evil in and of itself, or malum in se. Conduct that was so clearly violative of society's standards for allowable conduct that it was illegal under...
  
  
• Quasi-criminal
  Quasi-criminal
  Quasi-criminal means a lawsuit or equity proceeding that has some, but not all, of the qualities of a criminal prosecution. It may appear in either a Common law or a Civil law jurisdiction...
  
  
• Status offense
  Status offense
  Two common definitions of a status offense or status crime are1. A status offense is an action that is prohibited only to a certain class of people, and most often applied to offenses only committed by minors....