Criminal offenses can be broken down into two general categories ''malum in se'' and ''malum prohibitum''. The distinction between ''malum in se'' and ''malum prohibitum'' offenses is best characterized as follows: a ''malum in se'' offense is "naturally evil as adjudged by the sense of a civilized community," whereas a ''malum prohibitum'' offense is wrong only because a statute makes it so. ''State v. Horton'', 139 N.C. 588, 51 S.E. 945, 946 (1905).
"Public welfare offenses" are a subset of ''malum prohibitum'' offenses as they are typically regulatory in nature and often "'result in no direct or immediate injury to person or property but merely create the danger or probability of it which the law seeks to minimize.'" Bash, 130 Wn.2d at 607 (quoting Morissette v. United States, 342 U.S. 246, 255-56, 72 S. Ct. 240, 96 L. Ed. 288 (1952)); see also State v. Carty, 27 Wn. App. 715, 717, 620 P.2d 137 (1980).