Answer:
An offender is a criminal, someone who breaks the law. A first-time offender, depending on the crime, might only have to pay a fine or perform community service.
Offender is the way prison inmates and lawbreakers are often referred to in news reports or by police officers and prison staff. You might hear terms like "drug offenders," people arrested for crimes involving illegal drugs, or "juvenile offenders," young people who have broken the law. Offender comes from the verb offend, "to sin against" in the fourteenth century, from the Latin offendere, "to hit or strike against."
