Template talk:English criminal law

"Crimes of dishonesty" and etc
The following offences, currently listed, do not, in express terms, require "dishonesty": taking without consent, forgery, blackmail. Neither do offences under the Computer Misuse Act 1990 (presumably what "computer crime" refers to).

I do not understand the logic of grouping criminal damage with public order offences.

I am going to replace the group "crimes of dishonesty" with a group called "offences against property" as I think this is more typical and straightforward approach. I will put criminal damage into this group.

I will create a new group for "forgery, personation and cheating" as forgery does not fit into any of the existing groups, and is not necessarily an offence against property either. This follows the layout of Archbold Criminal Pleading, Evidence and Practice.James500 (talk) 13:17, 21 June 2011 (UTC)

Additional templates are needed
In my view, there are so many offences, and so many related concepts, that we will need additional templates with a narrower focus. There are already a substantial number of offences, that already have articles that are not included, not to mention the ones for which articles have yet to be created. James500 (talk) 16:49, 14 January 2012 (UTC)
 * I have fixed several links, so that they will work or "black-out" on their respective transcluded pages. I don't know why you had reverted them. Also, I tend to like the links to be alphabetized, because, in the order that they are now, as a layperson, I don't see a correlation. --Funandtrvl (talk) 18:04, 14 January 2012 (UTC)

The reversion of those particular links was an accident that was due to the fact I started with an earlier revision of the template because I felt it wouldn't be practical to start with the latest revision in order to make the extensive changes that I had in mind.

The correlation is that the classes, defences and offences are related to each other and are grouped together by books on the subject. (So, for example, murder, manslaughter and infanticide are grouped together because they are forms of homicide, and I put child destruction next because it is a bridge between homicide (in the technical sense) and the offence of procuring a miscarriage, and so on. I tried to put them in order of decreasing seriousness.) If you cannot see correlation, a better solution might be further subdivision of the template or the creation of new, more specific templates. Alphabetical order is going to be meaningless to a person who is familiar with the subject. I didn't realise that it was alphabetical. James500 (talk) 18:52, 14 January 2012 (UTC)
 * Yes, I agree, sorting by correlation is probably the best. Although, like I said above, that may not be immediately evident to a layperson, such as myself. --Funandtrvl (talk) 19:00, 14 January 2012 (UTC)

I have effected Template:History of English criminal law. James500 (talk) 04:31, 21 January 2012 (UTC)

width of box creates page margin problems
This template wrecks the view of pages that have it open, effectively adding a "third column" to the view (first column being the left-side wikipedia info, second column being the article itself, which has been width-limited due to the addition of the "third column" created by the unnatural width of this template.

I have no idea what to really do about this. I am going to try removing the image in case that solves the problem. But I expect I'll be putting it back when it doesn't. Ukrpickaxe (talk) 12:28, 1 December 2017 (UTC)


 * Well, removing the image improves the situation on several pages, including this one. So I'm leaving the change. However, the margin problem still exists on the stupid page where I started, Grievous bodily harm. The issue may or may not be related to its' mismatched name in the template, which is Wounding or causing grievous bodily harm. It seems more likely that the page itself has some coding flaw, but it's not immediately apparent. I hope someone smarter than me figures this out. Thanks. Ukrpickaxe (talk) 12:44, 1 December 2017 (UTC)

Broken Links in Template
I have noticed there are 5 broken links in the template 1. Assault with intent to rape 2. Harboring a fugitive 3. Escape from lawful custody 4. Breach of prison / breaking prison 5. Rescuing a prisoner. I am not confident about trying to modify the template so thought to bring it to attention here. Nestek (talk) 03:05, 18 May 2018 (UTC)


 * "Harboring a fugitive" now redirects to Accessory (legal term).
 * Obstruction of a police officer is now a redlink.
 * Other 2 are still redlinks.
 * I don't know whether they should be corrected or removed. The Crab Who Played With The Sea (talk) 09:57, 19 May 2022 (UTC)