The Classification of Offences

Bentham divides offences into four main classes: private (harming one or more specific assignable individuals), semi-public (harming a class or neighbourhood), public (harming the state or community at large), and self-regarding (harming only the agent themselves). This classification is not arbitrary but flows from the utilitarian requirement to identify whose interests are affected and to what degree.

Because punishment is itself a harm — a quantity of pain deliberately inflicted — it is justified only when it prevents a greater harm. Acts that harm only the agent are poor candidates for criminalisation: the agent is the best judge of their own interests, and the state has nothing to gain from punishing them. This analysis provides a utilitarian foundation for what Mill would later develop into the harm principle, distinguishing the proper domain of law from the domain of private liberty.

The classification of offences occupies Part II of the Introduction, Chapters XVI–XVII, with detailed tables of subdivision.