Defining Crime and Deviance

Defining Crime and Deviance

Definitions

Crime• Behaviour which breaks

laws and is punished by the legal system

Deviance• Behaviour which goes

against the norms, values and expectations of a social group or society

• Can you think of some examples of criminal and deviant behaviour?

Crime and Deviance are Socially Constructed

• Both crime and deviance are culturally determined.

• Foucault wrote about how definitions of criminal deviance, sexual deviance and madness have changed over time. 100 years ago, it was deviant for women to wear trousers!

• Subcultures can have different norms• Plummer (1979) the same act can

be seen as deviant or non-deviant depending upon the situation

Societal Deviance

• Swearing at an authority figure

• Random acts of violence

• Child abuse

Situational Deviance

• Being naked

• Wearing outrageous clothes!

• Killing someone

Social order and social control create a consensus of how to behave

• By definition _____in society isn’t ______ or _____. Social order and _____ ______ maintain the _____ ___ and create a ______ _________ of how to behave. People are ______ to follow social norms.

Most behaviour criminal deviant social controlstatus quo value consensus socialised

Positive/negative sanctions and informal/formal sanctions

Positive Sanctions – Rewarding people for conforming

Negative Sanctions- Punishing people for deviating

Formal sanctions – carried out by an official agency

A certificateA medalA cup

A finePoints on a licenseA yellow card

Informal sanctions – carried out by the public

A pat on the backSaying “well done”

Deliberately ignoring someoneTelling-off

Non-sociological theories of crime

• Lombroso (1876) genetic differences

A large jaw, extra fingers and toes• Moir and Jessel (1995) hormonal

Imbalances

Psychological Theories

• Bowlby (1946) Individuals deprived of maternal love are likely to develop personality traits which leads to them committing crime

• Eysenck (1964) Inherited psychological characteristics predisposes people to crime

For the non-sociological theories the cause of crime lies within the individual.

For sociology, the cause of crime lies in society

Practice Questions

• Give an example of a behaviour which is deviant but not criminal

• What is situational deviance?• Give an example of an informal positive

sanction and a formal negative sanction• Give an example of a psychological theory

of crime• Give one difference between physiological

and psychological theories of crime

• ‘The cause of crime lies within the individual’ To what extent do sociological arguments and evidence support this view?