What's the difference betweeen "crime" and "criminality"?

Question

One definition of criminality is

a criminal act

which is exactly what a crime is. I realize that both crime and criminality can be collective nouns for acts of unlawfulness as when we say

Violent crime in the US has dropped over the last two decades.

And here's a link to a site that discusses

the possible connection between environmental lead levels and the drop in criminality

But I'm confused as to whether there's a difference between the two words. For instance, here's a book title

Environmental Crime and Criminality: Theoretical and Practical Issues

If the two words meant the same thing, the inclusion of both in the title would be redundant. This implies a difference. But here's another book title

Crimes by the Capitalist State: An Introduction to State Criminality

The colon implies that the following words are a restatement of the foregoing words and thus that the two words mean the same thing.

Can someone explain this to me?

Helmar · Answer

You might find the Collins dictionary entries helpful:

criminality

the state or quality of being criminal
  (often plural) rare a criminal act or practice

And the law related ones for crime

crime

an act or omission prohibited and punished by law
  a. unlawful acts in general ⇒ a wave of crime
  b. (as modifier) ⇒ crime wave

For criminality it lists the state of being criminal first. Generally dictionaries try to sort their order of meanings according to how much a word is used that way. Additionally they added rare to the second meaning, indicating even less usage of that way.

Crime on the other hand primarily describes singular acts and all generalizations second.

Etymology-wise they have two different origins 
criminality stems from the French criminalité (1610s), while [crime] is older: mid-13c., "sinfulness," from Old French crimne

Saeedullah Gadhi · Answer

As per my opinion,
Crime:
simply defined as violation of law.
Criminality: the state or fact of being or involved in criminal activity.
Criminality focuses on etiology of crime.
While crime is just general term those who violate state defined law.

Mozibur Ullah · Answer

Crime is a noun. It names the genera of criminal acts, say a robbery or a burglary. For example,

Burglary is a crime

Or

Robbery is a crime

Criminality names the notion of a crime, for example:

The criminality of the afore-mentioned act is contested.

Or

His criminality knew no bounds.

What's the difference betweeen "crime" and "criminality"?

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