As you might have guessed from the title, Fyodor Dostoevsky's Crime and Punishment is obsessed with crime, criminality, and vice. Like many of the best books, it asks more questions than it answers. As the novel unfolds, we are faced with a repulsive array of crimes, including murder and all kinds of child abuse. Some of the crimes are more subtle – crimes of power and privilege, crimes against the poor, crimes of meanness, pettiness, and apathy, many of which, legally speaking, might not even be considered crimes. The novel's ending suggests that maybe even murderers can free themselves from criminal impulses and learn to truly love.
Crime and Punishment argues that child molestation is a worse crime than murder.
In Crime and Punishment, punishment ideally leads not to suffering, but to happiness and redemption.