This chapter describes an approach to classifying misdeeds that is intended to
further an understanding of why people choose the sanctions they suggest and the
aims they hope to achieve in cases of wrongdoing.

There is ample evidence from court trials and from disciplinary measures in
homes and schoolrooms to support the observation that the sanctions people
recommend for wrongdoers are not founded solely on the titles of the wrong-
doers' misdeeds--such titles as murder, stealing, cheating, and lying. Rather,
the choice of a sanction is usually affected by (1) certain details of the misdeed,
(2) selected characteristics of the wrongdoer, and (3) selected characteristics of the
recipients of the misconduct. In keeping with this observation, the mode of
classification described in the present chapter is a multidimensional or multiaxial
structure offering three major perspectives from which to view any act of
wrongdoing. The perspectives focus on (1) the nature of an improper act
( Characteristics of Misdeeds), (2) significant features of the person who
committed the act ( Characteristics of Wrongdoers) and (3) significant features of
the recipients of the act ( Characteristics of Victims). An adequate description of
a misdeed for the purpose of proposing sanctions and their aims consists of
identifying the status of the act in terms of each feature under each major
category. Performing this act of identification can result in the following kinds
of descriptions in four illustrative instances of wrongdoing:

Late one evening a man wearing a ski mask and brandishing a pistol entered and
all-night gas station and ordered the clerk to hand over all the paper money in
the cash register. When the clerk refused, the robber shot him, took a handful of
bills from the cash drawer, ran out to his car and sped away. A woman who had
been filling her own car with gas rushed into the office to help the wounded clerk
and to call the police. She gave the police a description of the assailant's car
along with the first two numbers on the car's license plate. Within an hour, two
police officers apprehended the robber at a bar nearly 25 miles away. They

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