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Criminal Justice Center  Misprision in California?  California
lawmakers are considering ways to expand the current criminal
reporting law to include a requirement that anyone who witnesses
a violent crime being committed upon someone younger than 16, or
possibly 18, report the crime to the authorities. Current law
only covers children up to 14, which angers some Richmond,
California, residents who think the young people who failed to
report an alleged rape and robbery being committed upon a
15-year-old girl should be punished.  The crime of failing to
report a known felony existed at common law, and exists today in
some jurisdictions, as misprision of a felony, and is usually a
misdemeaor. The principle supporting a general societal
obligation to report crime began to develop in the 13th century,
and, as far as we know, the crime was first defined in 1557 by
Sir William Staundford, who said:  “Misprision: this is properly
when anyone learns or knows,