The AI-powered English dictionary
third-person singular simple present criminalizes, present participle criminalizing, simple past and past participle criminalized
(transitive) To make (something) a crime; to make illegal under criminal law; to ban. quotations examples
The Nixon campaign in 1968 […] had two enemies: the antiwar left and black people. […] [B]y getting the public to associate the hippies with marijuana and blacks with heroin, and then criminalizing both heavily, we could disrupt those communities.
2016 April 1, Dan Baum, quoting John Ehrlichman, “Legalize It All”, in Harper's Magazine
(transitive) To treat as a criminal. examples