SOCIOLOGY

Sociological theories of crime and deviance

Sociological theories of crime and deviance

Introduction

No one can deny the fact that laws are created to control a social structure and every crime is seen as a violation of law. In the United Kingdom, laws are designed at the state and federal levels where the federal laws have precedence over the state laws (Muraskin & Roberts, 2008). It is also important to understand that morals serve as basis of the majority of these laws. If we look just forty to fifty years back at American Laws, it can be seen that African-American were not allowed to marry a white woman or sit in the front area of a bus that was reserved for whites only. In addition, American women were also not allowed to participate in politics, vote and work outside their homes in the past (Walker et al., 2011). In fact, these laws were against the morals and lost their existence as the society grown. The very same happened with the United Kingdom laws. Today, the United Kingdom has a very changed society where people demand for legislation on the issue of same sex marriage. No doubt, time changed many things in the country but role of beliefs and morals cannot be ignored.

The role of criminal justice becomes more important in a society that has been facing change and also has potential to change in future (Kalunta-Crumpton, 2011). This suggests that the criminal justice system is an effective way to beat crimes in a changing society. The most important thing to know is that if criminal justice is not present in any society, the society will become heaven for individuals involved in crimes or who have criminal behaviours. In United States, the criminal justice system aims to provide a safe environment to people and gives them their rights. As discussed earlier that society is changing continuously as there are more crimes than before and more people are illegally living in the country. It would be fair to say that more the races in one nation, higher the differences in terms of ideology, beliefs and culture in the society (Walker et al., 2011). This means, implementation of criminal justice system is way to prevent the birth as well as growth of any crimes in result of change in society. The criminal justice system considers the role of social developments and policy changes as these factors are linked with the criminal justice system of any country (Muraskin & Roberts, 2008).

The discussion about criminal justice cannot be completed without throwing light on the issues of social justice as Social Justice System also encourages the prevalence of understanding, respect and equality of human rights as moral values in a society (Ayers et al., 2008). The concept behind the social justice is to ensure that criminal justice system is free from racism and determined to give rights to all citizens regardless of their race, ethnicity, colour, and culture. It has been seen that unfair judgments by the justice ...