THE SOCIOLOGY OF CRIME AND DEVIANCE

The Sociology of Crime and Deviance

The Sociology of Crime and Deviance

Introduction

Crime and deviance can be defined as activities which break the legal norms of a society and are punishable by law and activities which do not conform to the norms of a particular community. All societies have systems of social control for example, the processes by which individuals and groups are persuaded and sometimes forced to conform to the dominant norms and values of society.

Relationship between Crime and Deviance

Crime and deviance is believed to overlap in behaviours that are criminal as well as deviant as deviance may be illegal causing an overlap in crime and deviance. “Deviant behaviour may be illegal, but not all deviant acts are against the law.”

The relationship shows how deviance can also be criminal for example parking on double yellow lines, this is unorthodox behaviour as it breaks the social norm but is also criminal as there are legislations against parking on double yellow lines (Cohen, 2004, 44-55).

The difference between Merton's idea and the Marxist idea is that Marxist sees greed as being built into a capitalist society. However, one of the main weaknesses of the Marxist theory is that it only recognizes class; it does not look at gender it briefly looks at age and ethnicity but not in as much depth as some of the other theories. Another weakness is it does not recognise the importance of the media like post-modernists would do. However, strength of Marxism is that it does recognise the importance of class in a capitalist society today (Carrington, 2002, 23-30).

Examples of Crime

A crime is behaviour in which the law that society has formed is broken, examples of this maybe, a bank robbery where 4 males held up a bank with fire arms and demanded cash or on a less serious note a crime could be something as petty as throwing litter or being slightly over the alcohol limit in a public area causing a public nuisance.

Examples of Deviance

Deviance is behaviour that is disapproved by the vast majority of people in a society and does not conform to society's norms and values it is also socially defined. An example of deviance would be nudity but not nudity in general as at home it has classed as acceptable where in a shopping centre or at a football match it has seen as deviant or may even be illegal.

How Crime and Deviance Overlap

Crime and Deviance may sometimes overlap in case a crime may also be seen as unorthodox behaviour as well as criminal behaviour examples are crimes of violence, crimes of harm, and theft of personal property as all considered as deviant and illegal (Rock, 1999, 88-94). However, deviance does not always overlap with crime for example, obesity, stuttering and physical handicaps as all of these are deviant but not illegal. Furthermore, crime does not always coincide with deviance for example, income tax invasion which is merely a crime in which people break the law to protest against ...