These words pertain to the breaking of a law. Crime refers specifically to serious misconduct, violation specifically to lesser breaches of regulation; offence generically includes both kinds of law-breaking: slums rife with theft, murder and other crimes ; a traffic violation ; a motorist who repeats the minor offence of illegal parking and, by ignoring the bookings, becomes guilty of a major offence ; a light sentence because it was a first offence . Crime may be used as an abstract noun to suggest all illegal activity: a mogul of organized crime . It may be used hyperbolically to mean any misjudgement: It’s a crime to waste your money on such a movie. It may also imply a breach of a moral standards: a crime against nature; a crime against humanity. Outside the legal context, violation may suggest a breaking of faith or the rape or desecration of something held sacred: the violation of a confidence; a violation of the test-ban treaty; soldiers responsible for the widespread violation of the captured city’s women; the violation of holy relics. Offence , outside the legal context, may suggest extremely bad taste or injury to someone’s sensibility: a film so ribald as to give offence .

Crime commonly subdivided into two categories ?misdemeanours , the less serious, and felonies , the more serious offences . The line between misdemeanour and felony is arbitrarily set by tradition or law. Severity of sentence may also be a determining factor. Treason is distinct in kind rather than degree from misdemeanour and felony ; it involves a deliberate betrayal of one’s country to an enemy, whether in peace or war. Of these three words, only treason is occasionally used in other than its legal sense. In this case it refers to some monstrous desecration or ethical violation : Nazi doctors whose experiments constituted moral treason against our most deeply ingrained human instincts. During periods of heated political controversy, treason is often used loosely to describe any act deemed unpatriotic or damaging to the national interest: In my book, burning our flag is an act of treason .