What do you understand by deviance and crimCrime: an illegal act which is punishable by law. - What do you understand by deviance and crime? Deviance: behavior which does not conform to society's norms and values and, if. detected, is likely to lead to negative sanctions.
Sociologists define human behavior in terms of infraction of some agreed upon rule. Thus, according to Cohen (1966) deviant behaviour is: “Behaviour which violates institutionalized expectations, that is, expectations, which are shared and recognized as legitimate within a social system.” What do you understand by deviance and crime? The same normative conceptualization is followed by Clinard (1963) who describes deviant behaviour as: “Behaviour in a disapproved direction from the norms and sufficient in degree to exceed the tolerance limit of the community”, Sociologists, whose main concern is to capture the social reality as closely as possible, remain pre-occupied with an analysis of institutionalized expectations of normative standards of the community, which tends to bring an element of noncriticality in their approach.
Unlike, this is the lawyer’s concern with
‘crime’, a special form of deviation, has been subjected too much greater
analysis that is reflected in the wideness of crime discourse itself. What do you understand by deviance and crime? The
distinctively of crime type deviation lies in: a) involvement in acts or
omissions which are proscribed by law, and b) infraction of norm entailed by
imposition of penal sanction or punishment. Thus, involvement in Crime leads
triggering a set of consequences, ultimately leading to imposition of
punishment. An authority on Criminal Law, Kenny (Outlines of Criminal Law),
identifies the following three characteristics of Crime:
i)
that it is a harm brought about by human conduct which
the sovereign power in the State desires to prevent;
ii)
that among the measures of prevention selected is the
threat of punishment;
iii)
That legal proceedings of a special kind are employed
to determine the guilt of the accused before being punished. This way both the
Sociologists’ and Lawyers’ conception of deviance and crime have two common
features.
First, both treat institutionalized expectations
or community norms and Law as a “good thing” or a desirable social entity that
is assumed for the larger happiness of the society. However, while emphasizing
the fact of normative fidelity one has to be aware of emerging, though held by
a few, trend of those who perceive norms or law “neutrally” as a set of “power
resource” that can be used for bad or repressive purposes as well. Second,
deviance and crime are premised on an implicit subscription to a consensus
model in regard to ‘harmful’ behaviour.
The consensus model constitutes the
strongest basis for legitimization of the criminal justice systems in the
modern societies. However, the consensus view is also critiqued by a few who
subscribe to a conflict model that views deviance and crime in terms of
conflictual relations between the dominant and subservient sections in the
society. The conflict view is best reflected in the ideas of left wing
sociologists and criminologists such as Chambliss (1975) Richard Quinney etc.
David Matzo (1969) provides a reconciliation between consensus and conflict
models by suggesting a dynamic frame for conceptualizing deviance.
He conceives deviance in terms of
the problematic empirical complexity of the society; for there inevitably
exists, particularly in industrial societies, not one commonly shared and
consensually agreed-to-culture, but plurality of cultures, which do not
co-exist without considerable tensions and conflict.
The competing cultural entities
constantly strive to legalize and transform their cultures into dominant
culture. But despite Concept of Deviance and Crime 7 legalization of culture,
legitimization may still be lacking and non-dominant cultural groups may
continue to follow their own cultural practices and standards. This makes the
issue of legitimization a source of constant tension: because some groups press
for their cultural practices to be recognized by law and turned into crimes,
while as other cultural groups press for abolition from the legal code certain
behaviour patterns, thereby to resort to be decriminalization