Word.ws English Dictionary

How to use criminalize in a sentence

12 example sentences · verb

Criminalize means to make (something) a crime; to make illegal under criminal law; to ban. Example: “In response to the international communist movement, the Peace Preservation Law was enacted to criminalize attempts to change the Japanese kokutai.”

Examples of criminalize by meaning

verbTo make (something) a crime; to make illegal under criminal law; to ban.

  • "Ag-gag laws criminalize undercover investigations by prohibiting one or more of three types of behavior: trespass, recording of videos, and failure to submit a video to law enforcement."2015, Gregg Barak, editor, The Routledge International Handbook of the Crimes of the Powerful
  • Advocates for homeless people, the American Psychiatric Association and several left-leaning states, including New York, Illinois and Minnesota, argue that criminalizing homelessness only worsens the problem.2024 April 22, Shawn Hubler, “Homelessness Case Draws Unusual Alliances: Conservatives and California Democrats”, in The New York Times
  • A group of homeless residents sued the city, challenging the ordinances and contending that the local laws essentially criminalized homelessness.2024 June 28, Abbie VanSickle, “Supreme Court Upholds Ban on Sleeping Outdoors in Homelessness Case”, in The New York Times

More sentences with criminalize

  • In response to the international communist movement, the Peace Preservation Law was enacted to criminalize attempts to change the Japanese kokutai.From the entry kokutai
  • Utah was the first US state to criminalize the use and possession of cannabis.2016, Joe Dolce, Brave New Weed, Harper Wave, →ISBN, page 18. From the entry antiweed
  • This is probably best termed the criminalizing or policifying of school.2014 October 21, “The Criminalization of Schooling”, in Talking Points Memo. From the entry policify
  • Should, for example, intentionally misreleasing or destroying a key be criminalized?1995, Coping with U.S. Export Controls, page 925. From the entry misrelease
  • I'm sure even Donald Trump, who was once pro-choice but now panders to evangelicals, has qualms about criminalizing abortion.2023 December 16, Maureen Dowd, “Supreme Contempt for Women”, in The New York Times, New York, N.Y.: The New York Times Company, →ISSN…. From the entry supermobilized
  • We're demonized and criminalized as perverts out to trick and deceive cis hetero men; therefore anything that happens to us, we 'had coming.'2017 November 21, Trish Bendix, quoting Ashlee Marie Preston, “Why it matters that transgender women are speaking out about Jeffrey Tambor…. From the entry cis
  • The emphasis on the securitization of immigration actually began before September 11 and has resulted in policy change towards criminalizing undocumented immigrants in both the United States and Europe.2009, Judith Ann Warner, Battleground Immigration: M-Z, Greenwood, →ISBN. From the entry securitization
  • The Agreement criminalizes end-user piracy and requires Australia to authorize the seizure, forfeiture, and destruction of counterfeit and pirated goods and the equipment used to produce them.2006, Office of the United States Trade Representative, National Trade Estimate Report on Foreign Trade Barriers: 2006, page 29. From the entry produce
  • The next decade would culminate in a tsunami of legislation, civil litigation, and criminal prosecutions in which assisted suicide was both criminalized (as in Michigan) and decriminalized (as in Oregon).2012, Demetra M. Pappas, The Euthanasia/Assisted-Suicide Debate, ABC-CLIO, →ISBN, page 60. From the entry tsunami

Meaning of criminalize

  1. verb To make (something) a crime; to make illegal under criminal law; to ban.
  2. verb To treat as a criminal.

Full definition of criminalize

Questions about criminalize in a sentence

How do you use criminalize in a sentence?
Criminalize is used as a verb. For example: “In response to the international communist movement, the Peace Preservation Law was enacted to criminalize attempts to change the Japanese kokutai.”
What is a short sentence with criminalize?
“Should, for example, intentionally misreleasing or destroying a key be criminalized?”
What does criminalize mean?
Criminalize means to make (something) a crime; to make illegal under criminal law; to ban.

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: criminalize (page history and authors) and the entries each sentence comes from. Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws chose the sentences, left out offensive ones and quotations older than 1900, and marked the word in each. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.

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