Sprawca

Sprawca is a Polish noun meaning "perpetrator" or "offender." It denotes the person who commits or causes a prohibited act, most often a crime. The term is widely used in legal, criminological, and journalistic contexts to describe the actor responsible for an event, without making a determination of guilt or innocence by itself.

The word derives from the verb sprawić, meaning to cause or bring about, with the agentive suffix -ca. In gendered form, the feminine is sprawczyni. The noun is masculine in its base form, with feminine and plural variants used as appropriate in sentences.

In legal and media usage, phrases like "sprawca przestępstwa" (perpetrator of a crime) and "sprawca wypadku" (person responsible for an accident) are common. The term denotes responsibility but does not itself declare guilt; that determination follows investigation and judgment. It can describe a wide range of acts, from crimes to caused damage or disasters.

Grammatical forms include masculine "sprawca" (plural "sprawcy"), feminine "sprawczyni" (plural "sprawczynie"). The word is versatile in describing the actor in both criminal and non-criminal contexts, while remaining neutral in terms of moral assessment until legal conclusions are reached.