In every nation, there are two branches of the legal system, such as civil law and criminal law. In early civilizations there was no distinction between civil and criminal law. However, in the United States today the degree of significance of a crime is classified as a felony or misdemeanor. In this composition I will discuss the differences between criminal law and civil law and how they differ in consequences. The amount of crime differs between communities. Unfortunately, periodically, crimes are not recorded in the statistics, due to the crime not yet discovered, which is called the dark figure of crime. Civil law originated from Roman law. The development of Roman civil law consisted of more than a thousand years of jurisprudence through the twelve tables that form the basis of the current legal systems. The laws support equal treatment and fairness. Additionally, the laws covered inheritance, marriage, and court procedures. The civil legal system today is a branch that deals with the definition and enforcement of all private or public rights such as contract, family, intellectual property, and tort laws which are called misdemeanors. An example of a misdemeanor dispute is panhandling in Salt Lake City, according to the Salt-Lake-city Weekly, “three men were arrested for panhandling in Salt Lake City. Therefore, civil rights attorney Brian Barnard filed a complaint on behalf of the three men. In the complaint, the attorney explained how their First Amendment rights were violated under state law when police cited them while ignoring other comparable solicitations. The settlement come to town has agreed not to issue tickets to individuals holding signs asking for money or assistance, as long as the individual is not in a location that poses a safety risk to themselves or others.” Under civil law, the government provides a forum for resolving wrongdoing if the plaintiff seeks to prove that a mistake was made. Another example of a hypothetical civil lawsuit is a former patient suing a doctor for a misdiagnosis of cancer. Plaintiff alleges defendant failed to monitor her symptoms accordingly. As a result, the cancer has spread throughout the body. At the end of the case, the court held the defendant responsible. Therefore his driving license was revoked and he was sentenced to two years in prison.