Criminal law covers a vast area of our legal structure. Unlike many other areas of study, students enter law school with some exposure to and ideas about the subject, gathered from past courses in college, news, reports, personal experiences, novels, movies, and television. However, the actual practice of criminal law includes much more than the courtroom drama or police encounter. From the theories of punishment which inform the creation of laws that define crime, through the procedures and rules which regulate the courts through the prosecution and defense of those statutes, into the theory and politics of punishments, the study of criminal law touches every aspect of legal education. Unlike most other areas of legal study, criminal law is public law, meaning that the state is both the accuser and the victim, the state manages the courts and often supplies the attorneys of the accused. Therefore, the good of the generalized population is the touchstone of criminal law, rather than the vindication of the harm against an individual. To that end, criminal law starts with the creation of statutes defining crimes, procedural rules enacted by legislatures or courts, and administrative laws regulating the punishment and incarceration of wrongdoers. Add on top of all of this the state and federal constitutional provisions that ensure that the awesome power of the state, once turned toward a citizen, is restrained and applied equally and fairly. In some cases, international laws and treaties will also act as a check on the ill use of power against an accused.