Awareness of crime essentially accommodated by court's punishment (9)
I believe the answer is:
sentience
'awareness' is the definition.
(sentience is being aware or conscious)
'crime essentially accommodated by court's punishment' is the wordplay.
'essentially' means to look at the middle letters.
'accommodated by' means one lot of letters goes inside another.
'court's punishment' becomes 'sentence' (eg a prison sentence).
The middle letter of 'crime' is 'i'.
'i' put into 'sentence' is 'SENTIENCE'.
'of' is the link.
(Other definitions for sentience that I've seen before include "Ability to feel or perceive" , "mind" , "awareness" , "Feeling" , "Consciousness -- ten nieces (anag)" .)